


One Minute to a New Midnight

by Kryptaria



Category: Watchmen (2009)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Movie, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:37:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the departure of Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias' plan seems complete, but victory is never assured - not while uncontrolled pieces are still in play. But sometimes, to move one piece, you have to control another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Origin

**Part 1: Origin**

_Everything returns to the origin._

_There is no such thing as success. There is only failure: failure that comes immediately or failure that comes later. All we can do is strive to hold off failure until the quantum mechanics of the issue change enough to invalidate the problem, replacing it with with another challenge to be met. Another problem to be solved. Another chance to delay failure for another day._

_In 1967, Feynman said there was a time when newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. He also said that no one understands quantum mechanics._

_I understand. But perhaps that is because I also understand the mechanic._

_Feynman didn't._

* * *

Laurie didn't look up from the TV as Dan walked back into the living room. "Who was it?" she asked absently.

Dan could still hear that smooth voice on the phone, soft and firm and confident, but somehow a little darker, changed from how it had been  _before_. "Oz — Adrian," he corrected himself.

Short-cropped dark hair slid over Laurie's shoulders as her head whipped around, her blue eyes staring at him.  _"What?"_  she gasped, kicking her feet down from where they'd been propped on the coffee table. She rose, a little less fluidly than she might have five years ago, and slid into a turn like an ice skater, her socks giving her little traction on the hardwood floor. "That asshole called  _here?"_

_Obviously,_  Dan thought, though he bit back the response. He pulled off his glasses, found the cloth in his pocket, and started polishing the lenses. There was a new surgical process that could have fixed his need for glasses, but he'd refused to entertain the notion. Soon, he'd have no choice. Soon, glasses would be a thing of the past.

The surgery had been pioneered by Veidt Medical Technologies.

"He wants to take us to dinner. He's back in the country," he said, hearing the sharper German edge in his memory. Adrian Veidt was American through-and-through. Ozymandias, though, was the product of his German heritage. The German accent had come through clearly during the brief, courteous phone call.

Laurie's temper exploded. She twisted with a hiss of wool socks on wood and paced as though the brownstone couldn't contain her sudden energy flare. Dan watched, and not just because he was watching for danger signs. She truly was beautiful, even ten pounds heavier, her hair cut in a short bob. She was wearing one of Dan's button-down shirts and leggings, not dressed to go out, but he could see inside her the shadow of the Silk Spectre.

Her energy wasn't infinite, though — not like the energy that powered their cars and televisions and ovens and even Archie, now that Dan had refitted the engines and weapons systems. As it wound down, she turned, silhouetted beautifully against the window, midday blue sky bringing with it a shiver of memory: Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue skin.

"Well?" she demanded. "You told him to fuck off, right?"

"I told him I'd ask you."

Her eyes flashed. "You  _what?_ " she demanded, gaping at him.

He took a deep breath, trying to feel anything but sadness and the weight of years and nightmares. His hands should have been dripping with blood — his blood, Rorschach's blood, the blood of fifteen million people who died for a secret that burned inside him — but they were dry. "I want to go."

That silenced her. She lifted a hand slowly, covering her mouth in an unconscious gesture. She was like that. Over the last five years, he'd watched her slowly learn to come to terms with her own feelings. She had lived her whole life for others: first for her mother, and then for Jon Osterman. She'd tried doing that for Dan, but he hadn't allowed it — there were still dents in the walls from her throwing plates and punches — but eventually, she'd come into her own.

"Fine," she finally said, and threw down the TV remote. It bounced on the sofa cushion and clattered onto the floor under the coffee table. She turned and headed for their bedroom, stopping only when she reached the doorway to throw back, "Fuck you, too."

The door slammed, echoing in the spacious living room, and Dan wondered why it didn't hurt as much as it should have.

* * *

Ozymandias. Visionary. Self-sacrificing hero. The charismatic force behind the independent, contentious group of crime fighting vigilantes. The leader who held them together, at times through sheer willpower. Nothing less than Ozymandias himself could have leashed Rorschach and the Comedian. Nothing less than Ozymandias could have understood and communicated with the towering intellect that was Dr. Manhattan. Nothing less than Ozymandias could have inspired Silk Spectre and Nite Owl to reach farther and higher than their predecessors had ever dreamed.

Ozymandias was an unreachable ideal. If Dr. Manhattan was likened to a god, Ozymandias  _was_  a god — at least, to them.

And Ozymandias' mirror? Adrian Veidt. Philanthropist and humanitarian. Entrepreneur and marketing genius. Athlete and gymnast. Secular savior of the world, a scientist without parallel. Only Adrian Veidt could have built up a fortune most people couldn't even imagine, and then dedicated every last dime to developing the power that had freed the world from fossil fuels. Only Adrian Veidt could have given that power away for free, and then rebuilt his fortune on an even more staggering scale.

Adrian Veidt was the worst mass murderer in history.

Dan saw them both as he approached the table. The white tablecloth glowed as it fluttered in the breeze that whipped across the top of the skyscraper. Infinity pools lapped against the horizon to either side of the balcony, reflecting only starlight. This was the highest building in the city. Dan knew that the sprawl of city lights below would look like a sea of stars, as though they were dining in space.

The roof was paved with sandstone brick. Palm trees lined the path from the glass elevator to the balcony on the east side of the building. The sacred east. The rising sun.

Adrian Veidt was a scientist. Ozymandias had the soul of a pagan.

Adrian was standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to the balcony, blond hair still straight and free of any hint of the grey that showed at Dan's own temples. His blue eyes were so clear, Dan could see them even in the darkness, as though they glowed from within. That's how it always had been.

He was still tall and slender, unbent by the years that Dan was feeling heavily in his own joints, legacy of too many fights and falls. And Dan couldn't quite hide the smile that touched his lips — a smile that brought with it the acid burn of betrayal deep in his gut. The words just slipped out, unbidden. "You're still wearing purple."

Adrian's own lips curved up as he looked down, lashes lowering for a moment. He spread his hands enough that the purple sleeves of his blazer tugged up, showing the white cuffs of his dress shirt at his wrists. His cufflinks gleamed gold in the faint light.

Instead of addressing Dan's observation, he said, "Thank you for coming. I'm so sorry Laurie couldn't make it."

It was a polite fiction, and they both knew it, but Dan had been the one to initiate the lie. Compared to some of the lies that hung heavy between them, it was practically truth. So he just said, "Some other time," and closed the last five yards between them. "She goes by Sandra now. Sandra Hollis. Technically, I'm Sam Hollis."

"Sam and Sandra Hollis," Adrian said with a gentle smile, extending his hand. "Forgive me, but I'll always think of you as Daniel."

"That's... that's fine."

The last time they'd touched, Dan had ripped off his mask. Adrian had been masked as Ozymandias, but it was Adrian — the flawed man — who had looked out from under that perfect fall of blond hair. It was Adrian's blood that had stained Dan's hands. It was Adrian's eyes that had met Dan's gaze so calmly, accepting whatever justice Dan wished to impose, watching as Dan finally turned away and brought Laurie out of the place where the old world had died. The power in that encounter had belonged to Dan, who had never before been able to defeat Ozymandias  _or_  Adrian Veidt.

This time, without their masks, the power was Adrian's. Dan felt it as soon as their hands clasped. Adrian didn't try to make anything more of it — didn't try to pull Dan into an embrace, like he had the other times they'd met unmasked. He just looked into Dan's eyes, his smile serene on the outside, but troubled somewhere below. Dan could see a shadow on him, and a chill ran up his spine as he realized it was the shadow of the past, but not a shadow of years.

"God, Adrian," he said softly as they both let their joined hands fall. Dan blinked a couple of times and wanted to clean his glasses, because what he was seeing couldn't be real. Adrian had always been beautiful. Once, Dan had joked that if they were going to make bare-faced action figures of any of them, it had damned well better be Ozymandias, because he was the pretty one. But time didn't stop for anyone, except maybe for Jon.

And now, Adrian.

Adrian looked down again, lifting his hand, spreading his fingers. They were the hands of a twenty-year-old. Maybe twenty-five. "Oh, yes. That," he said softly, and favored Dan with another smile. "Science progresses, my friend. I've made some breakthroughs in genetic engineering. But let's leave that for after dinner. How is Sandra?" he asked, touching Dan's arm to lead him up the stairs.

The balcony was cantilevered off the building, and the table was close to the edge, but Dan found the height exhilarating. The view was every bit as spectacular as he'd expected. It engaged his attention as a white-clad servant cleared away the third place-setting, opposite Dan, leaving Adrian sitting to Dan's right.

_Always the optimist,_  Dan thought, looking at the now-empty tablecloth. It was natural that Adrian would have ordered a third place set, despite Dan telling him Laurie wasn't available tonight.

Other servants came forward, one carrying their first course, another to pour the wine, making Dan a little uncomfortable with the ostentation. Though he wasn't exactly poor, his only real concession to wealth — other than his whole life as Nite Owl — was the maid that came by twice a week to clean. Laurie had talked about hiring someone full-time to handle cooking and cleaning — a nanny, she'd said, back when they talked about having kids. But the kids had never happened and Dan had become something of a decent cook for those nights when they didn't want to go out to dinner or bring in take-out.

Dan took a deep breath and a fortifying sip of his wine as he gathered his thoughts. "She's good," he finally said. "You know, keeping busy."

"Oh? What's she doing, these days?" Adrian asked politely, his sibilants coming out a bit clipped. German accent. Ozymandias' accent.

The question was innocent, even expected, but Dan didn't have an answer. Laurie didn't really  _do_  much of anything. Dan did a little day trading with a discretionary fund he kept separate from his professionally managed investments. He worked in his own lab — nothing like Adrian's, of course, but not too shabby — on new tools and modifications to his gear and to Archimedes. And, of course, sometimes, he went out late at night, and relived those past glories.

Silk Spectre came with him, those nights. But otherwise, she... well, she didn't have much of her own life. She read; she watched TV; she sometimes went out shopping. But except for those nights when she put on her ever-tightening costume and went out late in the night... that was all.

"Oh, you know. This and that," Dan said, stabbing his fork into his salad hard enough to clink the tines against the shallow dish. "Her mother passed two years ago."

"I know," Adrian said, his voice going even softer, and his lashes swept low again. "Please give Sandra my sympathies," he said sincerely, as though one death — the death of the Silk Spectre that he'd never even known, as Ozymandias — affected him.

_Fifteen million,_  Dan thought.

"I will," he lied. But when he met Adrian's eyes and managed to smile and say, "Thank you," that part wasn't a lie at all.

* * *

Dinner was fantastic.

Dan expected nothing less. It started with what Adrian said were blue cheese gougères (which translated to some sort of fluffy pastry) followed by some sort of cream soup too subtle for Dan's taste buds to distinguish. He would've called the entrée beef stew, but it was as far from his beef stew — made generally by throwing things in a crock pot and hoping he remembered them the next day — as you could get. Plus, it was tofu... tofu that tasted better than beef, which was, in Dan's opinion, a scientific impossibility. Dessert was some sort of coffee and chocolate pudding with cherries soaked in port.

It was a far cry from his usual Friday night dinner at the Italian place a few blocks from home. He'd felt guilty, right up until the main course; after that, he was too distracted by the food to feel guilty at all. Laurie hadn't wanted to come; it had been her decision, despite Dan's urging.

To make it worse, Adrian was at his most charming, asking questions that never ventured too close to personal — never getting too close to the bloody history that lay between them like a bottomless moat.

One of the everpresent, silent servants cleared away his dessert plate and replaced it with a cup of coffee. The cream on top of the coffee was swirled artfully into a spiral galaxy shape, with a cross in the middle, topped with a loop. He recalled it was an ankh, but couldn't remember what it meant.

Adrian cupped his hands around his own coffee, looking at the surface with his startling blue eyes. The faintest line showed between his brows. "I'm sorry I waited five years."

Dan felt a stab of guilt that was entirely unwarranted. He sipped his coffee, watching the ankh deform as the liquid shifted in the mug. "It's probably for the better," he admitted sheepishly. Five years hadn't been long enough for Laurie. Dan wasn't even sure that it was long enough for himself.

"I have a confession. I didn't only invite you here to catch up on old times," Adrian said, raising his eyes to meet Dan's.

_Here it is,_  Dan thought, bracing himself. Another chill swept down his spine, this one riding a wave of adrenaline, and his senses went into full alert. The windy, high night seemed to fade into the background as he became sharply aware of Adrian, of the servants, of the edge of the balcony and anything at hand that could be a weapon. The sugar bowl. Teaspoons. The furniture. Even the purple cloth napkin.

Most days, Dan Dreiberg felt like... oh, like an electrician, or maybe an accountant or clerk. Most days, Dan Dreiberg was anything but a warrior. A killer.

Adrian watched him, and Dan knew that his thoughts were written across his face, even though he hadn't even blinked. Damn Adrian's perceptiveness. What had Rorschach said about how Adrian had manipulated Jon? Dan couldn't remember, but it seemed immensely important at that moment.

"Daniel," Adrian began, breaking eye contact to look into his coffee mug again. He hadn't sipped it; the ankh, dark coffee and light foam, still floated undisturbed on the surface. "I've broken the code."

Silence fell between them. The servants had left the roof; Dan was entirely focused on Adrian. The sole threat. His friend. "The code?" Dan asked into that silence.

" _Life."_  Adrian looked back up at him, the glow in his eyes even more brilliant now. "Life, Daniel."

"Life," Dan said softly, not even realizing he'd spoken until the word slipped out. He leaned forward, looking at Adrian's eyes. They were clear and perfect, the lashes long and thick, the skin free of any blemish or wrinkle. And his hands... The long fingers were smooth, complexion perfect. "Youth."

"Youth," Adrian agreed, rising. He left behind his coffee as he paced with slow, measured steps to the edge of the balcony. The night wind toyed with his hair and tugged at his jacket, brushing it aside to show the curve of one hip before he tamed the cloth, buttoning the jacket with quick, economical movements. He raised his voice just enough for Dan to hear him over the wind. "But is it truly life, Dan? Or is it a death sentence for us all?"

Dan couldn't help but look down at his hands. Age had made his skin thicker. He was long past the sunny side of forty. He'd been thinking that it was time to pass on his mask, to hand over the keys to Archie, to retire into lonely obscurity. Or maybe he could write his memoirs, like Hollis had.  _I was there the day genocide secretly destroyed everything I loved,_ he thought recklessly, picturing the words typed on a page, only they were printed not in ink but in blood.

His laugh, when it came, sounded broken. "You're asking me about life and death?  _You?_ "

For one moment, Adrian bowed his head, light playing over his blond hair. Then he turned, first looking over his shoulder, before his body moved in two slow, graceful steps that put his heels against the very edge of the balcony. There was no railing; there wasn't even a lip or curb. "Who else would I ask, Dan?"

* * *

When Dan came home, Laurie wasn't in bed. She wasn't even upstairs; he found her downstairs in the lab, tilting a chair back, one foot braced against the edge of Dan's workbench. There was a half-empty bottle of vodka on the bench, and a glass in her hand.

She didn't look back as he came down the stairs. Her gaze was fixed on Archimedes, parked on the support struts, recharge hoses still engaged.

"You're back early," she said, though it wasn't true. It was nearly midnight.

It was a night for lies, apparently.

"We had a lot of catching up," Dan said, finding himself suddenly reluctant to share what he'd learned. He told himself that if Laurie was drunk, she wouldn't remember it anyway, so there was no point in talking to her about it.

"Great. You and your best fucking friend, Hitler's heir," she said bluntly, tossing her head back as she swallowed the contents of her glass without pause. She leaned forward enough to refill it, splashing some onto the workbench.

"That's not fair," he protested.

"Not  _fair?_ " she demanded, getting to her feet ungracefully, tipping the chair over. The sound of it falling was loud, echoing in the concrete-floored laboratory. " _Not fair_  is killing fifteen fucking million people, Dan!  _Not fair_  is making those poor people suffer with cancer!  _Not fucking fair_  is driving Jon out of the  _galaxy._ "

Dan took a deep breath and held up his hands, striving to keep his voice calm and even, wondering not for the first time how he'd ended up as the peacemaker of the Watchmen. "He's more than just that man, Laurie —"

"Oh, yeah?" She swallowed her drink, lip curling in distaste not for the alcohol's sharp bite but obviously for the subject of their discussion. "Maybe to you. Not to me.  _Never_  to me, Dan."

"Laurie," he began, but he knew it was pointless. When she was in this mood, trying to stop her would be like trying to stop a natural disaster with his bare hands. So he got out of the way and kept his mouth shut as she stomped past him and up the stairs. The slam of the basement door was deafening.

Sighing, he went to go clean up his workbench.

* * *

"So, on first glimpse, immortality is great. I mean, eternal youth," Dan corrected himself, pacing the length of the maintenance pit. Archimedes' underbelly hung low overhead, and he had to duck every time he passed the open hatch that covered the flamethrower's refueling port. He still had to use fossil fuels for that, though he'd been considering modifying it for natural gas instead. The petroleum-based mixture he used was hard to come by, these days.

"It's not real immortality," he continued, reaching up to trail his fingers along the lower edge of one engine exhaust port as he turned. "You can still die — it just won't be from old age. Or from any of the diseases that come with old age, which is the problem."

Sighing, he resumed his pacing, heading fore, listening to how the quality of his voice changed as he passed beneath Archimedes again. "The world's already overpopulated. I don't remember the figures he gave, but even if we had a small increase in annual childbirths, we'd be looking at mass starvation inside ten years."

He stopped at the steps that led down into the maintenance pit. He turned and sat down, then lay back against the edge of the steps, elbows propped up, head tilted back. He could just see the gleam of Archie's forward viewports. "Then we're talking sterilization. Licenses to even have kids. Forced abortions. God knows what would happen to 'illegal' kids who were born in secret and then discovered."

As another sigh died out, silence fell in the laboratory. If he concentrated, he could hear the exhaust fans in the ceiling, the flow of water through the pipes overhead, even the faint crackle of power from the energy conduits that replaced the old Romex wiring that once fed household outlets.

No voice answered him.

These days, it seemed he spent more time talking to Archimedes than to Laurie.

He took off his glasses and the world went fuzzy — fuzzier than it had just five years ago. Then, without his optics, he'd still been able to see Adrian's face, up close, bloodied from his punches. Now, he knew that if he went upstairs and kissed Laurie — a prospect fraught with hazard unless she'd passed out from the vodka — she'd be a blur, even from only an inch away.

"He did it to himself," Dan went on as he polished his glasses, looking up at the big, matte curve of Archie's hull. "The first human test subject. Locked himself in his laboratory for eight months. Told his staff he'd found a gifted plastic surgeon."

He breathed on the lenses, fogging them, and wiped the moisture away, before he slipped them back on. He'd always worn glasses. Even if he turned the clock forty years back, he'd still need them.

"He offered me the treatment," he said, his voice going soft and low. "Laurie, too. But..."

He sighed, and looked up at Archimedes, hearing his sigh echo through the high-ceilinged lab. "He told me it's  _my_  decision, what he does with this discovery. If he releases it to the world or burns his research, it's up to me."

Closing his eyes, he could see clearly Adrian Veidt's youthful beauty, like it was laser-etched in his memory.

"God help me," he whispered.

There was no answer.


	2. Endurance

**Part 2: Endurance**

_**Do not stand against me as witness beside the lords of the ritual.**  
_ _**Do not say against me, he did do it, about my actions.  
** _ _**Do not make a case against me beside the great god.** _

_Eternal youth. The driving force behind greatness and madness, behind the nightmarish experiments of necromancers hiding behind the label 'scientist'._

_It reeks of death. With every breath, I taste the ashes of burning flesh and hear the screams of the condemned._

_Does Daniel feel the weight of conscience as I do? Does he believe I feel it, or does he believe I've handed it wholly to him, absolving myself of its burden?_

_**Tell my goodness to Ra. Hand me to Nehebkau.**  
 **See him, uniting the earth at the great one within.** _  
_**May I endure on earth and not die in the west, and be a blessed spirit there.** _

_My research in the clean, sterile, pristine solitude of my laboratory has its roots in blood and terror, just as I have my roots in my parents._

_Fifteen million dead. More will die, if not by my hands, then by my inaction. I am my parents' son._

_How much worse is it that eternal youth is not the goal, but simply the most enticing bait I could create?_

* * *

Three weeks. Eight screaming fights. Twice, the front door slammed. Twice, it opened softly, a tacit bid for peace that never lasted. Laurie finally found her equilibrium in refusing to acknowledge that Adrian Veidt still breathed. Preferring peace, Dan did nothing to disabuse her of that idea.

When the lunch invitation came, he accepted on his own behalf, and simply told Laurie that he was going out. Maybe she believed him; maybe she didn't.

As he left, he wondered if he hoped she'd be there when he returned, or if he hoped to return to peaceful solitude.

Shared meals had significance. Religion, politics, and history — in all of them, shared meals were important. He had a feeling it went all the way back to when humans lived in caves, when a shared meal could mean the difference between life and starvation.

It was raining, so this time, lunch was inside Adrian's apartment, without one servant in sight. Adrian answered the door himself, informally dressed in a purple shirt so dark it was nearly black, shimmering like silk, tucked into silvery grey slacks. His smile was warmer, more animated, as if being freed from the formality of a suit freed something in his spirit. A few strands of blond hair were just touching his eyelashes, and Dan nearly reached out to brush them aside. This was the closest to disheveled that he'd ever seen Adrian — not counting that icy, terrible day at Karnak.

"Forgive my appearance," Adrian said at once, ushering Dan inside. He closed the door — it locked automatically, judging by the  _thunk_  of magnetic solenoids in the frame — and extended his hand. "I was preparing lunch."

"You're cooking?" Dan asked, surprised, as he shook Adrian's hand.

"I thought you might prefer something a bit less formal than our dinner was." Adrian's smile wasn't the benevolent, slightly patronizing smile he reserved for reporters and publicity photos. It was Ozymandias' smile, one Dan had only ever before glimpsed after a job well done. He hadn't smiled at all at Karnak, Dan remembered.

"Dinner was great. The view up there is gorgeous," Dan said earnestly, feeling just a bit strange as he allowed Adrian to take his raincoat. He hadn't bothered with an umbrella out of habit, and he felt uncomfortably mussed. While Adrian's back was turned, he combed his fingers through his hair a couple of times, and then stopped, feeling his receding hairline. When Adrian turned back from the closet, Dan jerked his hands down and smiled, feeling like he'd been caught doing something inappropriate. Damn Adrian for getting him thinking about age and youth.

"You're welcome here any time," Adrian told him, and gestured him toward a high, squared-off doorway that led into a spacious kitchen of dark-enameled steel appliances and granite countertops. As he passed, he reached out to briefly touch Dan's arm, too light to even crease his tweed jacket. "I mean that, Daniel — though I don't want to assume..."

"Assume?"

Adrian looked down and let his hand fall away, resuming his walk to the kitchen. "I'm sorry," he said, his soft voice perfectly controlled, as always, as he spoke over his shoulder. He didn't stop walking until he was at the stove. One touch had a heater element glowing beneath a cast iron skillet. "I have very few people I would consider friends."

 _Friends,_  Dan thought, sitting down at the kitchen table. It was a three-sided booth built into a bay-style window that looked out over the city. He turned, sitting sideways at the end of the bench, to watch Adrian.

Had he and Adrian ever been friends? Had Nite Owl and Ozymandias? Dan couldn't honestly say, one way or the other. Adrian — Ozymandias — had always been so...  _superior_  to them all. Friendship required equality. The only one who was Adrian's equal in any way was Jon... and look at what had happened there.

The sharp  _thunk_  of a knife saved him from answering, though it sparked all sorts of reflexes until he realized Adrian was chopping something. From where Dan sat, he couldn't tell what it was — only that it was brown and looked vaguely like cooked meat that Adrian was slicing into strips, but it wouldn't have been meat. The greatest mass murderer of all time was a vegetarian.

God, he had to stop thinking of Adrian that way.

He excused himself, and Adrian gave him directions to the bathroom, where he used a hand cupped under the faucet to wash down a couple of antacid pills. The bathroom's soft white lighting — the fixtures were shaped like ornate art deco white flowers with stylized gold leaves — was kind to him, but not so kind that he couldn't see the crow's feet, the frown lines, the sagging skin, the grey streaked through his thick, once-dark hair...

Fifteen million dead.

Youth. Not just beauty, but health and strength and speed and... and God, he  _wanted_  it, not just for himself, but for Laurie. With every year that passed, it felt like another five separated them, as if he was ageing and she was just growing distant. Disenchanted.

Intellectually, he supposed he shouldn't blame her. Going from a god to a man would have that effect on anyone. That didn't make it any easier to bear.

He found a comb in his jacket pocked and tamed his hair. Then, because his host was surprisingly informal, he took off his jacket and hung it over his arm, carrying it back out to the kitchen, where he was just in time to hear the skillet sizzle under an aromatic cloud that made his stomach growl.

Adrian threw him a smile that nearly stopped him in his tracks, it was so... unguarded. So  _real_. "You're hungry. Good. I hope you like Mexican."

"Oh, sure. Jews are famous for their secret love of Mexican cuisine," Dan joked, setting his jacket down on the bench before he wandered in the direction of the stove, driven — as always — by his curiosity.

"Don't  _kvetch_  until you've tasted it," Adrian said, and Dan couldn't help but laugh. Adrian glanced at him for just an instant, eyes bright and smiling, before he turned back to his cooking. He lifted the skillet by the towel-wrapped handle and tossed the contents. Slivers of pepper and onion were mixed with what looked like meat, all coated in oil that smelled a touch spicy. He put the skillet back down and brushed past Dan, opening the refrigerator door.

"There anything I can do to help?" Dan asked.

"You're a guest, Dan. You're not allowed to help in the kitchen unless you move in," Adrian scolded smoothly, taking a square tray off one of the fridge shelves. It held several shallow square dishes, all interlocked like the pieces of a puzzle, filled with bright-colored vegetables and cheeses. The largest dish, in the center, held some kind of salad with corn and beans.

Retreating, Dan sat back down, watching as Adrian Veidt, potentially the richest and most powerful man in the world, set the table and laid out what proved to be Mexican salad and fajitas, made not from steak but from portobello mushrooms.

Adrian gestured to the food, not speaking until Dan helped himself to some of the salad. "I've been deliberating on the  _issue_  of which we last spoke, and I'm sorry to say I still have no answers."

Dan sighed, nodding in agreement, and tasted the salad. It was cool, crisp, and unexpectedly spicy, with the bite soothed by shredded cheese. "It seems so simple, until you really look at it," he said, tensing, waiting for Adrian to turn that truth around and apply it to fifteen million deaths.

But he didn't; he just crunched through his salad in silence for a few seconds, before he asked, "Have you considered my offer?"

 _Youth._  Dan took a deep breath and ate a few more bites of the excellent salad. "Of course I have," he said, his tone sharpened by fear or irritation or... damn, even  _he_  didn't know what he was feeling.

"And have you discussed it with Sandra?"

With a guilty little flinch, Dan shook his head, looking across the table for the first time. Adrian was watching him earnestly, with a slight, worried crease between his brows. One of his hands, pale and perfect and young, slipped toward him, pausing on the table beside the serving bowls.

"I... Adrian..." Dan set down his fork and pushed aside his salad plate, taking a sip of iced tea. "I don't know. She doesn't even want to hear about you."

Gently, without condemnation, Adrian said, "She doesn't know you're here."

Dan leaned back, closing his eyes, pushing his hands through his hair. "Adrian... you — What you did —"

"I know." The words were soft, almost whispered. He lowered his eyes again, head bowed just enough that his hair brushed his lashes again. "I  _know,_  Daniel. I can't ask either of you for forgiveness."

Adrian Veidt was ruled by logic. Dan knew this. He could count every time he'd seen those rare flickers of passion: moments of victory, of tragedy, even of joy. They flashed to life and disappeared in a blink, sometimes only hinted at deep in his eyes or the tone of his voice.

It was there now, in the twitch of his hand against the table, the way his German accent clipped his words.

Dan didn't even think. He put his hand over Adrian's, saying, "It's done, Ozy. I mean, Adrian."

"Masks," Adrian said softly, looking down at their hands, the corners of his mouth turning up just slightly. "Nite Owl."

With a soft laugh, Dan said, "I'm just the heir —"

"Owls have long been symbols of wisdom," Adrian cut in, his hand pressing warm against Dan's palm. "'Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.' Tao Te Ching," he quoted. "Both are required for balance, Dan. For growth."

"Ozy..." Dan felt warm fingers curl around his hand. Surprised, he looked down. The contrast between Adrian's youth and his own age was startling.

Adrian's fingers twitched as though he was also surprised. He shifted and pulled his hand free, smoothly turning his attention back to lunch. "No matter what we do with this knowledge, the offer remains," he said, his voice calm and even. "Age is the only limit to your potential, Daniel."

"Why?" Dan asked, his hand cold without the warmth of Adrian's touch. He closed his fingers into a fist for a moment, and then distracted himself by following Adrian's example in building his first fajita. The Lego-style assembly of the meal appealed to him.

"Who else would I choose?" Adrian asked softly. "You're the only — You and Sandra are all I have left."

* * *

" _Youth?"_  Laurie froze in mid-pace, her angry glare fading into shock.

Dan nodded. "He doesn't even look like he's thirty. It's a personalized gene therapy —"

"And he wants to do this for  _us?_ "

So, she didn't want details. Dan wasn't surprised; for all that she'd lived most of her adult life in a government research facility, she wasn't a scientist. "I told him it was a bad idea, but he insisted I speak to you."

Her eyes narrowed, emphasizing the crow's feet at their corners. "A bad idea? You didn't say  _yes?_ " she demanded, advancing on him, her expression incredulous.

Startled, Dan said, "A month ago, you didn't even want to talk to him. You didn't even want to hear his name. You walked out on me because I had dinner with him."

Color flared in her cheeks and she set her jaw in that stubborn way that he used to find adorable. Now, he just found it tiresome, and he wondered when things had gone so wrong between them.

That made him realize he was being unfair. Biting back his first response, he instead asked, "Do you want me to tell him yes?"

"Of course I want you to tell him yes!" she snapped out, rapid-fire. Then her eyes narrowed sharply and she asked, "You're  _sure_  it works?"

Baffled, he said, "Adrian doesn't look a day over thirty. Less."

"Fine!"

He stared at her.

Her brows shot up into her dark hair and she held out her hands. "Well? Go call him!"


	3. Balance

**Part 3: Balance**

_Desire and fear. Reward and punishment._

_Humans respond naturally to the simplest of stimuli. Our greatest challenge is to master ourselves. To see desire something beyond mere reward. To learn not to fear punishment. To look toward a higher goal than self-gratification and accept the risks as the price we pay._

_And beyond that challenge? The mastery of others._

_It begins with balance. To achieve mastery, you must strip away your opponent's balance. Take away your opponent's sources of stability and strength. Turn your opponent's desires and fears into a weapon._

_And when your opponent is off-balance and about to fall? You must become the only point of balance._

* * *

This time, the landing at Karnak was smooth, except for the wind that hammered at the hull. Instead of defensive jammers, Archie's systems were locked to a locator beacon to guide them in. Outside the viewports, the world was nothing but white, forcing Dan to land by instruments alone. Apparently Laurie didn't care; she leaned close to the other viewport, eyes straining to see anything but snow in the white glare of Archie's spotlights.

It was better this way, reaching Karnak in a blizzard. Dan didn't want to actually  _see_  it even in his memories, much less in reality. Bad enough his goggles saw far too clearly through the blizzard and the darkness of the Antarctic day, displaying a digital view of the landscape drawn in clean green lines.

The landing pad was alive with thermal energy, keeping the surface clear of ice. Tall obelisks at each corner of the landing pad served as decorative covers for energy transmission pylons, judging by the telemetry in the periphery of his HUD. Additional obelisks emerged from the pad, extending clamps to anchor Archimedes against the brutal winds. Once the violent rocking stopped, Dan got to his feet and looked at Laurie. His goggles compensated for the way the snow and interior instruments played havoc with the lighting, but he was struck suddenly by how beautiful she was.

She pushed away from the viewport, landing dexterously despite heels so high, he still wondered how she could even walk. The swirl of a black sable coat briefly obscured her yellow and black costume, until she swept it aside and raised a gloved hand to brush back her hair.

Dan was on the other side of the cockpit before he even knew he'd moved. He pulled her into his arms, leather gloves skidding over latex-sheathed curves, and captured her surprised gasp with a kiss. Already, he felt ten years younger, revitalized. Hopeful.

When he let her go, she drew a breath that strained at her costume and blinked up at him with wide eyes. "What brought that on?"

"You."

Slowly, she smiled, her eyes sparkling. "Maybe we should talk about this more."

The warmth that flooded Dan's body had nothing to do with the thermal fabric of his fur-lined winter cloak. "Mmm, we can do that," he said, leaning in for another kiss.

She got her gloved hands up, pressed against his chest, and turned away so that his lips brushed her cheek instead. "How about  _after?_ " she said insistently.

It took him a moment to remember what  _after_  meant. "Oh. Yes, of course," he said, pushing aside his disappointment. They'd been in flight for hours. Would another twenty or thirty minutes matter? Or did she mean after the treatment?

He didn't get a chance to ask, which was probably just as well. Laurie was already moving past him, opening the hatch, filling the compartment with a blast of snow. Dan jerked his cloak closed and tugged his thermal mask in place before his face could freeze. He followed her out and remotely closed the hatch, turning to watch and make sure ice didn't jam the mechanism. Then he had to turn and jog to catch up. Fortunately, the dark brown path was also de-iced and was starkly visible in the white-out conditions.

Dan intentionally didn't look around. He reached Laurie's side and took her arm to steady her — unnecessarily, by the quick glare she shot him, though the way her eyes were squinted might have been because of the biting wind and glare. He ignored it, instead focusing on following the path.

The doors came into view suddenly, catching Dan by surprise. They were huge, over thirty feet high and twenty wide, covered with bas relief hieroglyphs. They glowed to thermal sight from the heat that kept them free of snow. They remained closed until the last moment, when they slid slowly back and then to either side. Snow billowed around, obscuring the dark figure that was visible in the center of the gaping doorway, until Dan and Laurie closed the last few yards and crossed the threshold.

"Ozymandias," Dan said, his stomach flipping uncomfortably. He almost would have preferred to be met by Adrian Veidt, businessman.

It made sense, of course. Ozymandias' costume was built to withstand the arctic cold. And despite the memory, there was something comforting about seeing Ozymandias. He'd led them into some tight situations, and he'd always led them back out, no matter what the bad guys threw at them.

"Daniel. Sandra. Welcome," he said, almost too softly to be heard over the storm. As the massive doors slid closed, he gestured them both into a spacious hall filled with a forest of pillars. His clear blue eyes tracked to Dan's side and he asked, "Or do you prefer Laurie?"

"Whatever." The word was short and hostile — which passed for neutral, by Laurie's standards.

Unfastening his cloak, Dan put a hand on the small of her back. "Thanks for the heated landing pad. It'll make takeoff easier."

"I'm pleased to assist — though if you do decide to accept my offer, you'll want to move your craft to the hangar I've prepared. I'll need at least two weeks to tailor to your individual DNA sequences, and the treatment itself will take significantly longer."

Startled, Dan looked at Laurie, who was scowling distrustfully. "It's not just one quick shot?" she asked sharply.

Adrian smiled benevolently in that way he always had, as if to silently say,  _I know more than you, so just trust me and it'll all work out._ Leading them through the columns, he said, "This is still highly theoretical medicine. I've only tested it on myself."

"Wait," Dan said, pulling off his winter mask. He shoved it into a pocket inside his fur-lined cloak and ruffled a hand through his hair. "You're not a medical doctor," he said, finding his goggles in another pocket. He put them on, feeling strange wearing them without his mask. His glasses, though, were back in Archimedes' cargo hold. The goggles' telemetry identified Adrian as Ozymandias, of course.

Adrian turned his smile on Dan; the full force of his charisma was like a blow, stealing Dan's breath away. "I am now."

* * *

"I hate it here," Laurie snapped, pacing through the spacious suite they'd been given.

It was all one big chamber, its grand ceiling supported by columns carved to look like tall, graceful plants. The living area was tucked against a wall of glass that looked out over a spectacular, high ice cliff and the frozen, dark sea beyond. Instead of a conventional bathroom, the facilities were tucked behind a waterfall trapped between two panes of glass. The waterfall fed a rectangular bathing pool that steamed, the surface lit from below. The bed took up an entire corner, carved in the form of two graceful, horned animals standing to either side of the thick mattress.

He knew she wasn't criticizing the décor.

"His lab's here," Dan said, looking down at his bare hands and the ends of his suit's sleeves. He felt half-naked without his gloves and mask. "If we want to let him do this — Do we?" he asked, looking at her.

She pouted and glared, turning her stalk to bring her close to him, yellow latex flashing like a cheap imitation of the gold inlay on the columns. Unhappily, she said, "Of course we do. I just..."

"I know," Dan sighed, pulling her into his arms. She shrugged and twisted uncomfortably, but settled after a few moments, resting her head against his shoulder. "I don't like it any more than you do," he said, more to soothe her than because it was true. He was actually surprisingly... comfortable here, and not just because of the luxurious room.

Laurie's arms snaked up around Dan's neck and she leaned against him, raising up on her toes. Her lips brushed his ear, sending chills through his body, and he tightened his arms to pull her closer.

Any thoughts of taking advantage of their privacy disappeared as she whispered, "When do we take him down? Before, or do we trust him enough to wait until after?"

A lump of ice settled in his gut. He knew her. He knew Laurie and he knew Silk Spectre.  _Take him down._

Before she could get suspicious, he answered, "After," because he wanted to buy time.

Laurie purred and her lips moved again, closing around his earlobe. Her hands slid down his back, latex gloves pressing hard against his suit so he could feel her touch. She knew just how hard to press and where to touch; in five years, they'd learned each other.

Take the treatment. Strip years off their lives. Become young and strong again.

Avenge the deaths of fifteen million innocents.

Kill Adrian. Kill Ozymandias.

 _God, help me,_  he thought, and the chills that swept through him had nothing to do with Laurie's touch.

* * *

"This entire wing is at your disposal," Adrian said as he finished the brief tour in a room that Dan could've gone his whole life without ever seeing again. The bank of television screens had been replaced and the glass pyramid overhead had been repaired. Statues of ancient gods or kings stared down from their thrones.

 _There_  was where Rorschach had slipped down, trying to circle behind Adrian as he sat and watched the wall of televisions.  _Here_  was where Dan had landed when Adrian threw him; his back still ached on rainy days.

 _Over there_  were the exterior doors where Rorschach had taken his last steps, before Jon had killed him.

Dan wanted to be sick.

Turning with a graceful swirl of his rich purple cape of shimmering velvet, so dark it was nearly black, Adrian continued, "I must ask you not to go beyond these boundaries, though. This is an active laboratory complex and there are a great many dangers for the unwary."

"Of course," Dan said, in the interest of keeping the peace.

Adrian smiled, looking down from the dais in front of the television wall. "If you'll excuse me, then, I have to finish preparing the genetics lab. Please, help yourself to dinner. We'll speak again in the morning."

"Thanks again." Dan nodded, keeping one arm around Laurie's waist as they watched Adrian walk down to the aisle between the two pools that filled the room. He turned and went up the stairs flanked by the golden thrones, disappearing without a backward glance.

Laurie took a deep breath, tension rippling through her body. "Right. Where do you want to start?"

"Start?"

"Searching! We need to find out what that asshole is up to," she insisted.

It was obvious, in retrospect. Of course she'd want to ignore Adrian's warning and search the facility. Dan's mind raced; he racked his memory for what he knew of Karnak from their previous visit. There wasn't much except... Jon had gone  _that_  way — the same way Adrian had gone — and then he'd appeared outside the pyramid, talking about reconstruction.

With a little shiver, he realized he  _didn't_  want Laurie going that way.

The buildings that were separate from the main facility might be more hazardous, depending on isolation and distance to keep the primary building safe. But Laurie wasn't dressed for extensive outdoor exploration. She'd check the hangar, maybe one or two other buildings, and then rush back to the warmth of the main facility. It was the best he could come up with.

"I need you to check the hangar," he said, thinking of how much she loved to fly. She was a daredevil pilot and Dan was still nervous about giving her the controls — Archimedes was the closest thing he had to a child — but he'd rather she wreck the airship than get vaporized by whatever had... deconstructed Jon.

"The hangar?" she asked belligerently.

"If we need to get out — if he, I don't know, activates a self-destruct on the facility or something..."

She nodded slowly, not buying it entirely, but it was enough. "Good thought. I can check some other outbuildings as well."

He nodded. "Don't take too long. We'll meet back in the room in half an hour."

"Half an —"

He cut in before she could protest too much. "We can't risk him catching us. We'll be here for a long time," he coaxed, touching her face, thinking again that part of him was happy he'd left his gloves behind, to feel her skin under his fingers... and how wrong it was that he wasn't wearing his gloves.

"Dan..." She slowly nodded, taking a deep breath. "All right. Let's move."

"Be careful," he told her, watching as she turned and headed in the direction of their room, where she'd left her coat. He wanted to tell her to be careful, but she'd just resent it. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, but...

But.

* * *

Karnak was a labyrinth of chambers and passages that Dan had no hope of actually exploring. Really, he was just killing time until he could go back to the room and let Laurie think he'd actually accomplished something.

He had no idea what he was going to do. He had no idea what he  _wanted_  to do. He just knew he couldn't let Laurie try to kill Adrian — and not just because she would fail, and die in the process. To even make the attempt just seemed... wrong, to Dan, even if... God, even if  _Nite Owl_  knew it was right.

Rorschach had died, rather than compromise. He had died for his ideal of the truth, even though he must have known no one would ever hear that truth, much less believe it. And still, Rorschach had walked out into the snow, knowing  _someone_  would kill him. There was nowhere for him to go.

Somehow, Dan wasn't surprised that it had been Jon, not Adrian, who killed Rorschach. Maybe if it had been Adrian, all  _this_  would be easier. Maybe he'd be able to let Laurie kill him —

No. Because Laurie would fail, and Adrian might well kill her.

Despair pressed in on him. He rubbed at his brows over his goggles, then raked his hands through his hair. He was overdue for a haircut, but he hadn't bothered.  _Vanity,_  he thought with a wry smile as he reached the top of the stairs between the two statues, leading out of the great hall. He'd wanted to see his hair restored to its rich brown color, without the grey of age. Foolish vanity —

Behind the tributary bust of Ozymandias — Ramesses II — he found a circular opening, like a tunnel that led down. It was rough industrial concrete, not luxurious marble or gilded sandstone. His heart pounded against his ribs and his eyes searched the darkness as his thermal imaging kicked in. The telemetry display in his peripheral vision showed only ambient heat. No sign of Adrian.

Warily, he descended, moving as silently as he could on the concrete stairs, crouching low so he could see what was ahead. There was nothing significant: a low ceiling studded with lights, pipes and conduits along either side of the narrow hallway, reflective panels set into the walls to either side. Were they collectors, like solar cells, or emitters? What energy could they possibly collect?

As he reached the foot of the stairs, he recognized the spherical reactor up ahead, suspended in a vast, cavernous space, half-hidden below the lip of the walkway. He'd seen photographs of the reactor before — it was perhaps the most recognized shape associated with energy, more than the Tesla coil, more than the curved cooling chambers of a nuclear reactor. This was the Holy Grail of energy, the device that liberated humanity from fossil fuels. Adrian's dream. A legacy bought in blood and death.

He was drawn to it, moving between the mirror-finished plates without any thought for what they could be. He was a hobbyist, a tinkerer, not someone who was able to comprehend the true genius behind the reactor, a machine created by two men who were more like gods, each in his own way.

Halfway down the chamber, his foot brushed something. He stopped. Looked down.

Slowly, he crouched, picking up the scrap of purple neoprene, hardly bigger than his hand, sculpted into a domino mask. Ozymandias' mask.

Had it fallen? He must have come this way. Dan hurried to the end of the reflector-lined hallway and looked to both sides. To the left, the walkway led to a staircase that went under the reactor. To the right, there was a window that looked out at the reactor from behind wire-reinforced glass. He went that way, but the door was locked. He could see through the viewing window into a control room, with a bank of screens and pushbuttons —

Abruptly, the light in the control room went out, as though the motion sensors had timed out. He could still see the glow of the screens. One of them showed the reflector-lined hallway.

Had Adrian been in there? Had he seen Dan come this way? He must have, but why hadn't he stopped and confronted Dan?

God, it was always layers and masks and more layers with Adrian. Dan clenched his fist around the purple neoprene mask and, in an uncharacteristic fit of temper, slammed it into the window.

All he did was bruise his knuckles.


	4. Astray

**Part 4: Astray**

_Even through my gloves, I can still feel the smooth surface of the Activate button under my fingertips. I can feel the pushback of the spring engaging under the merest pressure, just enough to flex the metal. Not enough to bring the contacts into play._

_When I close my eyes, I see Daniel, ten pounds too heavy for his costume, with his greying temples and receding hairline and the lines around his warm blue eyes, bend over to pick up the mask. My mask. It was all I had left to sacrifice._

_My mask, and Daniel Dreiberg._

_**It is the very mind itself, that leads the mind astray. Of the mind, do not be mindless.** _

_I wondered, as Daniel left the reactor chamber... where was my mind leading me?_

* * *

As Dan slid up onto the examining table, he realized how unreal it all was. Hospital clothing wasn't supposed to be comfortable, but he'd been given silk pants — or something like silk, anyway. And the padded examining table, even though it was covered with plastic, was actually comfortable.

The exam room was sterile and white, but not cold or impersonal. It was warm, in fact, though the air pressure was slightly off, enough to make Dan's ears pop. He could feel wind pressing down from the ceiling: it was a cleanroom held at greater-than-atmospheric pressure, with constant airflow from ceiling to floor, keeping particulates away from the work surface.

He lay back, eyes tracking up to the observation window set high up in the wall. A blur of yellow and black was up there. He didn't have to focus to picture Laurie, arms folded over her chest, frowning and pouting unhappily, even though she hadn't wanted to go first.

Adrian came into the room and closed the door. He was covered in white from head to toe, with a clear plastic shield over his face. Dan could hear the sucking sound of his white boots as he stepped onto the sticky mat by the door with one foot and then the other, removing any traces of particulates that he might have tracked in.

When he walked over to the table and looked down, he came into focus enough that Dan could see he was masked, but the mask was all wrong. It covered his nose and mouth, leaving his eyes exposed.

"Are you comfortable, Daniel?" he asked, his pleasant, soft voice slightly attenuated by the mask and the white noise of the fans.

"I'm fine. Hope I don't fall asleep," Dan joked nervously.

Adrian reached out with a gloved hand and touched his fingertips to Dan's bare arm. Even through the latex, Dan could feel the warmth of that brief touch. "Perhaps we can find a way to keep you entertained. Would you like to know more about the process, or would you prefer not to think about it?"

Dan was driven by curiosity, but his nerves were strung tight. His heart rate and breathing were both accelerated. It might have been the high-oxygen atmosphere — Adrian had said the oxygen in the cleanroom was boosted. It might have been the perfectly human fear of medical procedures.

It might have been the puzzle of the purple mask that was hidden away in an inner pocket of his winter cloak. He hadn't even told Laurie about it.

"Why the cleanroom?" he asked, circumspectly approaching the subject of the procedure he was about to undergo.

"A cleanroom is rated based on the number of one-half micron particles that pass through a cubic foot of air in one second. A hospital operating theater is rated on average at class one thousand. Frightfully dirty, when you think about that," he said, turning away from the table, going to one of the shelving units. There were no cabinets — only shelves of steel wire. "This room is rated class ten, although your presence in this room introduces contamination."

"Thanks," Dan said dryly, propping up on one elbow, watching the white blur that was Adrian sorting through clear plastic boxes. He was laying out items in a shallow plastic box.

Adrian turned, and Dan imagined he could see him smile under his mask. "Just by breathing and moving, a human can shed more than one hundred thousand particles per minute. Hair, skin, perspiration, even breath. I'm more worried about cross-contamination, though, which is why you get to be comfortable, and I get this," he said, gesturing at his white coveralls.

Dan took a deep breath, suddenly conscious of what he might be exhaling, though he'd never really thought of it before. "So, what are we doing today?"

"I'm going to take some blood samples, and then a bone marrow core."

"Bone marrow core?" Dan couldn't quite keep his voice from sounding sharp.

"I'll give you a local anaesthetic first," Adrian said comfortingly. "It won't hurt."

"I guess you did all this to yourself?"

"I did. I couldn't risk involving anyone else. We three" — he looked up toward the viewing window — "are the only ones who know about this therapy."

Feeling even more like a guinea pig, Dan lay back down, trying to settle himself comfortably, wishing he'd taken a couple of antacid tablets, but Adrian had asked him not to take anything for the last twelve hours. He hadn't even been allowed to eat breakfast, and his stomach growled when he thought about that.

Adrian carried the plastic box over and slid a flat shelf out of a slot beneath the examining table's padded surface. He set the box down and leaned over, saying softly, "We'll be finished soon. I'll cook you lunch — whatever you like."

Dan couldn't quite hide the nervous edge in his laugh. "Most doctors offer their patients prescriptions."

"We'll see what we can do about that, next," Adrian said, curving one gloved hand over Dan's arm. The touch was soothing, but Dan still jumped when something cold and wet touched his skin. "It's just an alcohol pad."

"Sorry. Guess I'm jumpy," he admitted, shivering.

"It's understandable." He gave Dan's arm a squeeze before he let go, dropping the alcohol pad onto the shelf. "Lift your arm, please."

"I guess it's a little late for me to tell you I hate needles," Dan said, holding his arm up enough for Adrian to tie an elastic strap around his bicep.

Adrian gently pushed Dan's arm back down. His fingertips just grazed the sensitive underside of his forearm. "Relax, Dan," he said softly. "Close your eyes."

With another nervous little laugh, Dan said, "Relax. Okay."

He jumped again when he felt a touch low on his stomach, the latex glove warmed by Adrian's body heat. "Breathe in, not from your chest. Push up against my hand — good, just like that," Adrian said, his voice still soft, almost toneless. "Now exhale slowly, naturally. You're safe, Daniel. I won't let any harm come to you."

Dan took another breath, feeling Adrian's hand rise as he inhaled, and fall with his exhale. A comforting lassitude spread through his body from that point of warmth with each subsequent breath. "You know," he said, and was surprised at how relaxed and easy his voice was, "I never was one for meditation. Too New Age for my liking."

"Mastery of the body isn't mystical. It's scientific. This is the mirror of the focus you find in combat. Instead of motion — speed and strength — with each breath, you bring yourself closer to stillness."

Part of Dan wanted to laugh, but... it was working. He felt better, calmer, even safer — even when the needle broke through his skin. He shivered once, when Adrian's hand left his stomach to manipulate the needle and draw his blood, but on the next exhale, he was able to relax again.

It felt like a long time before Adrian finally said, "There. Finished." He drew out the needle and pressed a gauze pad over the puncture. He leaned close enough that Dan could see his eyes narrow as he smiled behind his mask. "You did well."

"I didn't exactly have the challenging part there," Dan said with a little laugh, turning to watch as Adrian untied the elastic strap one-handed, maintaining the pressure on the gauze pad. He set the strap on the shelf and rested his hand over Dan's bicep, rubbing the spot where it had been tied.

"I'll run some standard tests on your blood. I'll have the results within a few hours. Are you ready for the bone marrow sample?" he asked, turning away from the table and walking back over to the shelves.

Dan's heart skipped and he nodded, turning his eyes to the blurry window overhead. He couldn't see the black and yellow shape that was Laurie, and he felt a stab of concern. She might think this an ideal time to go exploring. God, he hoped she wasn't going to do anything stupid.

When Adrian returned, he said, "Roll over onto your side, facing me. I'm going to take this sample from your hipbone."

"Really? That seems... uncomfortable," Dan said nervously as he turned onto his side. He bent his legs for balance and one knee crossed the edge of the bench. He would have backed up, but Adrian put a hand on his leg, holding him in place, knee pressed against Adrian's side. Probably so Dan could more steadily brace himself.

"The sternum is the other location for this particular sample. That's far more uncomfortable," Adrian said, putting his other hand on the drawstring waist of the silk pants he'd given Dan to wear. One tug untied the knot and Dan looked up at him abruptly, wishing he'd thought to retrieve his glasses when he'd landed Archie in the hangar last night.

"You did this all yourself," he said suddenly. "The blood and bone marrow samples — you took them yourself."

"I did. I preferred to maintain confidentiality," Adrian admitted, loosening the drawstring enough that he could slide the waistband down over Dan's hip, to his thigh. The latex gloves were thin, not like the ones Silk Spectre wore; warmed by Adrian's body, they felt more like leather, and Dan's breath caught again, as he was struck by the bizarre curiosity to know how Ozymandias' neoprene gloves would feel on his bare skin.

He shivered again and closed his eyes. It had to be the increased oxygen in the air, or the effects of however much blood Adrian had drawn. He  _wasn't_  thinking of Adrian that way.

Adrian's fingers were rubbing little circles over Dan's hip. There was something slick, something that tingled for a few moments before he could only feel pressure and not the slide of latex on skin. "You won't feel anything but a slight pressure, if that," Adrian said softly, his German accent a bit more obvious. It was always that way when they were alone. Dan wondered if Adrian relaxed that much with anyone else, or just with him.

He wanted to ask about the mask, but he couldn't think of what to say. He let it distract him from that pressure that moved over his numb hip, spreading the numbness into and around his hip, until he couldn't even feel Adrian's touch. The absence felt cold, in a way that nerves couldn't quite register.

Adrian turned his attention to the box on the shelf under the padded bench. "Make yourself comfortable. Breathe as you were before. Here," he said, reaching out to take Dan's hand. He pressed it over Dan's stomach, where his own hand had rested a few minutes earlier. "This may help you focus."

After a couple of deep breaths — and, yes, they did help — he asked, "Will this take long?"

"What are a few moments, in exchange for an eternity of youth?"

Dan's laugh was less nervous, as if Adrian's philosophical display of confidence was an offer of comfort. In his way, perhaps it was. "I can try to be patient."

"Try? You're one of the most patient men I know." Adrian's hand passed over Dan's hip again, felt only as a distant pressure, bringing with it the sharp smell of alcohol.

"Me?"

"Forgive me." The accent was harsh but the words were soft. "It was an uncharitable thought." With one last touch that brushed over Dan's thigh, at the very edge of the numbness, he turned his attention back to the box of instruments.

Dan watched, wishing he could see more sharply, but even if he'd had his glasses, Adrian was masked — and not as Ozymandias. And he realized that this... this wasn't quite Ozymandias  _or_  Adrian, but some new facet. Hidden beneath a shapeless, pristine white coverall, his face masked and shielded, it was as if that anonymity — the privacy of this cleanroom, with Laurie no longer observing — allowed him to show some new inner self. Perhaps even his real self.

"Tell me," Dan urged quietly, forgetting to focus on his breathing. His hand moved, as if of its own accord, from his stomach to touch Adrian's arm.

Through the plastic face shield, Dan could see the gleam of Adrian's blue eyes. "Laurie," he breathed, startling Daniel into propping up on his elbow. Adrian looked down as though embarrassed. "You're very patient with her."

It was Dan's turn to look away. "She's still —" He cut off before he could say  _young_. She wasn't so much young as she was... inexperienced. Sheltered. He didn't allow him to think the word  _immature_  for more than a moment. "She's had a hard life."

Adrian didn't answer, save to give Dan what he thought was another slight smile. "Relax," he said, closing his gloved fingers around the hand that was still resting on his arm; Dan hadn't even realized he was still touching Adrian, and he tried to jerk away instinctively. Adrian caught his hand and held it for a moment, before settling it back over Dan's stomach. "Breathe," he reminded Dan.

Easy for him to say.

* * *

"Where were you?" Dan asked Laurie as he walked a little gingerly into their room. Laurie was standing by the window, looking out at the midday darkness. The sea and sky blended together so well that even Dan's goggles were flashing a warning that they couldn't decipher a horizon line. He got a chill just from looking at the telemetry display of the extreme negative temperature outside.

"Looking around. This place is a  _maze_ ," she said, only then turning back to look him over. She smirked. "New look for Snow Owl?"

The irritation that flashed through him wasn't quite as tempered by humor as it should have been. He  _did_  look ridiculous, in slippers and silk pants and a quilted purple silk bathrobe, with Nite Owl's goggles over his eyes. He really needed to go get his belongings out of Archie — though he wasn't in so much of a rush to get Laurie's clothes, he thought, looking over the yellow and black latex that hugged her curves like a second skin.

"And I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking," he snapped, immediately feeling guilty for it. His hip twinged as he crossed to sit on the bed. "Adrian's making lunch."

"I'm not eating with that bastard!"

She was willing to take Adrian's genetic therapy —  _Of course I want you to tell him yes!_  — and  _then_  kill him. The memory of Adrian's hands, of how solicitous he'd been in minimizing the pain and discomfort of the blood and bone marrow tests, cushioned the blow of Laurie's bitterness against his chest.

Frustrated, he threw up his hands and surged back to his feet, ignoring the way his hip ached. "Fine. Do whatever you want," he said bluntly, and went to put his costume back on. A visit to Archie was definitely in order, especially if  _this_  was how Laurie was going to be.

Ten minutes later, he tossed a woven nylon strap over his shoulder and twisted to fix the hook to the zipper at the base of his torso armor. When dressing alone, he had to use the strap to pull up the zipper that ran along the spine, something he hadn't had to do for five years, since Laurie had become an intimate part of his life. He turned back and started pulling it up with both hands, making sure to pull straight instead of off to one side or the other. If he got the armor twisted, he'd have to pull it off and start over. His hip ached under the pressure of his leggings and he made a mental note to ask Adrian if he could take aspirin or something.

Then, hands were on his back, unhooking the strap, easing the zipper up as Dan lowered his arms and looked over his shoulder. Laurie's black hair reflected a blue sheen from the floral lights on the nearby columns.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, not looking up as she tucked the zipper in place at the nape of his neck. She ran a hand up his spine, sealing the matte brown cover in place over the zipper. Then her hands lowered to his hips, finding the zippers that would seal his leggings and torso armor together.

He quickly did up the ones by his bandaged hip. "It's okay," he said just as quietly, though he wondered if he was lying. It didn't feel okay. None of this felt okay.

"I just... I hate being here, Dan." She followed the line of zippers around to his front, only then looking up to meet his eyes. "I hate  _remembering_."

The bitter ice around his heart thawed a little and he pulled her against his chest, leaning down to press a kiss against her short hair. He'd liked it better long, but she hadn't involved him in the decision to cut it. "I know, Laurie. Me, too," he said truthfully.

She took a deep breath and nodded, rubbing her cheek against his armor. The pressure of her hands on his back changed as her touch slipped lower, past his waist. "Dan..." she said, her voice taking on a new heat.

He wanted to respond — wanted to make things  _better_  between them — but he was tense and angry and hungry, and the pain in his hip was just distracting enough that he gently held her in place while he stepped back, out of the circle of her arms. "Lunch," he reminded her. Then, like a peace offering, he asked, "Will you come with me? Adrian's waiting."

Her eyes went hard as glass. "Oh, we wouldn't want to keep  _him_  waiting," she said, her lip curled as she spun away. Her boots hammered on the polished granite tiles as she stormed back to her spot by the window. "Go."

Apparently, nothing was going to be  _better_  until he was gone from Karnak, with more blood on his hands. But whose blood would it be?

He pulled on his mask and strapped on his goggles. He found his winter gear: mask, cloak, and gloves. He hung the cloak over his arm and tucked the mask and gloves into a pocket.

The pocket with the purple mask.

"Laurie —"

"I said  _go!_ "

Resigned, he went.


	5. Control

**Part 5: Control**

_Once, I was defeated._

_Once, I looked up into crazed, dark eyes and saw my own death reflected back in their sheen._

_Once, and only once, I lost control of my life. Until now._

_This time, as the control slipped from my fingers by inches against a pushbutton switch, the brush of an alcohol pad, the pressure required to puncture human skin with a hypodermic needle, my death wasn't imminent. Merely likely._

_This time, it wasn't just my life at stake._

_**No plan survives first contact with the enemy.** _

_Mine always had._

_Until now._

* * *

The dining room, like the rest of Karnak, was ostentatious. It was up a flight of stairs, but was filled with a pool of water accented with floating plants — broad green leaves, white flowers that he couldn't immediately identify. The dining table was set in the middle of the water on a broad dais supported by more of the ubiquitous columns. Narrow stairs led up to the table.

Dan wondered if Adrian ate here when he was alone, or if he did what any self-respecting bachelor would do: take his meals standing up in the kitchen, eating out of the pot to minimize dishes.

Probably not, knowing Adrian.

"I feel underdressed," Adrian said, smiling as he looked Dan over. Dan wondered what he saw — did he see Dan, costumed, or was  _Dan_  lost to Adrian's eyes under Nite Owl's mask? Adrian himself had changed out of his white cleanroom coveralls, though he stuck with the white motif: white turtleneck sweater in what looked like cashmere, a purple and gold monogram embroidered over his heart, and black slacks, spotless and crisply ironed.

"Yeah, everything's still in Archie. We didn't pack for an extended visit," he admitted, feeling unaccountably embarrassed. He piled his winter gear in the third chair; perhaps optimistically, Adrian had set a third place at the table. "I'll run out after lunch to get everything out of the cargo bay."

Adrian leaned forward to serve. There was more salad, of course, and when he lifted a cover from a platter, he revealed what Dan might have thought were hamburger patties, if he didn't know Adrian as well as he did. Probably tofu, mushrooms, or beans. Well, Dan had been meaning to lose weight anyway.

Tactfully, he said nothing about Laurie, or the third place setting at the table.

"If you'll permit, I'll come with you. You mentioned modifications to your craft. I admit to a certain curiosity," Adrian offered as he picked up his fork.

Pleasantly surprised, Dan nodded not even thinking about keeping some of his upgrades secret. He'd added weapons systems, improved the efficiency of the engines, and had a couple of gadgets that he thought might even impress the world's smartest man. At first, Laurie had been interested, though she'd never been quite interested enough to actually help. As the years went by, she'd stopped hanging out with him in the lab, and eventually, she stopped asking about his tinkering at all.

"Yeah. I'd like that," he said, and smiled as the tension of his disagreement with Laurie slipped away another notch.

* * *

Two hours later, Dan leaned over the seat, eyes flicking between the viewport and Adrian's gloved hands. His palms itched to retake control of the airship, but Adrian handled Archie's controls like he was born to piloting — no surprise there, of course.

As Adrian banked the craft sharply to port, Dan said, "The left inertial dampener —"

"— needs recalibration," Adrian finished, nodding. "Did you compensate for the lack of ballast after you converted to fuel cells?"

Dan grinned fiercely, wrapping his arm around the top of the chair as Adrian twitched the controls, sending Archie into a perfectly managed mid-G turn. The back of Adrian's head pressed against Dan's forearm for a moment as he turned, watching the horizon line on the sharp green lines of the HUD projected over the viewport.

"That was the first thing I did. It's a sticking mercury switch. I changed out all but one before we flew down here — my supplier was out."

"Daniel," Adrian scolded, twisting to look up and back, his eyes bright beneath the fall of blond hair sweeping across his forehead. "My workshop is at your disposal. We can have this repaired by tonight, if you'd like."

Dan pushed up his goggles and the world fuzzed out just a bit, but he could clearly see the play of the instrument panel's lights over Adrian's pale skin. "Like we're not imposing enough already?" he asked, nearly poking his eye as he rubbed at it with his double-gloved hand. A little irritated, he shook his head, blinking furiously as he pulled off his winter gloves. Archie's main compartment was heated by rerouted exhaust ducted through the hull. It also took care of any icing problems.

"Why would you ever imagine your company to be an imposition?" Adrian asked quietly. Their eyes locked and Dan felt his breath catch again. One gloved hand lifted from the controls and Dan felt a touch on his own hand. He looked down, realizing he'd let go of his steadying grip on the seat, allowing his hand to fall on Adrian's shoulder. As Adrian's hand pressed down on his, glove-to-glove, he felt the ridges of Ozymandias' armored mantle.

Dan had been a pilot at heart since the first day he'd sprawled in the grass and looked up at the sky, watching birds effortlessly fly. Archie was like an extension of his own body. But under the force of Adrian's gentle touch and the charisma in his gaze, Dan never even felt the turbulence until the cabin floor rumbled under his feet.

Adrian's head whipped around and his hand went back to the controls, expertly compensating. "Ascend or land?" he asked, putting the decision into Dan's hands, even though he currently had the controls.

Automatically, Dan pulled his goggles back down and checked the gauges. Thanks to the efficiency of the energy cells, they had enough power for a full day of fair-weather flying — less if things got rough, which they were. He wasn't worried about turbulence; short of a hurricane, there wasn't a storm that Archie couldn't weather or outfly. But Laurie would be worried...

Assuming she even noticed.

_Fuck it._

"Think you can handle the wind?" he challenged, bracing his feet against the cabin floor, taking a firmer hold of Adrian's chair.

That might well have been the first time Dan ever caught Adrian by surprise. He looked back, blue eyes wide for just an instant, before he smiled slyly and turned his attention back to the controls. "Do you doubt that I can?" he asked mildly.

Biting back a laugh, Dan said, "Well, you've never flown a craft like Archie before. I can take the controls, if you don't think you can manage."

In answer, Adrian turned his attention back to the HUD, not even needing to look as he reached for the upper panel over the central control console. That was all the warning Dan had as he hit the boost jets, and only Nite Owl's reflexes kept Dan from ending up in the cargo net at the back of the compartment as Archimedes leaped forward like a spurred racehorse, surging up into the cloud cover that hung low over the ocean.

Dan had been sticking to Adrian's side of the cockpit to advise him — unnecessarily, as it turned out. Now, he almost climbed to the other seat, bracing against the floor to turn it to face forward before he kicked at the gimbal lock to hold it steady despite whatever acrobatics Adrian had planned. He strapped in as well, more out of habit than because he anticipated Adrian engaging in any barrel rolls. At the click of the harness buckles, though, Adrian looked over, and that sly smile reappeared on his lips — barely there and gone again — and Archimedes rolled neatly into a steeper ascent.

They burst through the clouds into a sky filled with bands of pale green. Entranced, Dan leaned forward, shoving his goggles up again. Adrian silently leveled Archimedes and disengaged the boost jets.

"The Aurora Australis," Dan said quietly in the sudden near-silence as the boosters died.

Softly, Adrian said, "'And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness about it.'"

"The New Testament?" Dan guessed.

The smile Adrian turned on him was knowing and indulgent. "I'm a student of history, Daniel."

"Yeah, but I always figured you for a secret pagan."

Judging by Adrian's sudden, startled laugh, that was the second time Dan had ever caught him by surprise. Hiding his satisfied smirk, Dan turned his attention back to the aurora, glad that he was sharing this sight with Adrian and not with Laurie.

He wasn't quite willing to explore why that was.


	6. Inertia

**Part 6: Inertia**

_To paraphrase: the innate force of matter is a power of resisting by which every body endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line._

_Humans, given the right push, are much the same._

_I had at most six weeks to create a new angle of movement, to bend the paths that two humans walked, to guide their steps in a new direction, one that I could use to create the desired outcome and stave off failure for a time — in other words, to succeed. The forces at my disposal were, as always, desire and fear, reward and punishment._

_Augmented, of course, by science._

_Gene therapy could not turn back the clock. The damage caused by time to the human body was too extensive. Where gene therapy failed, though, other technology would succeed — technology that required no samples of blood or bone marrow at all._

_But those samples were, of course, essential._

_Desire._

* * *

There was something peaceful about Karnak, mostly. Maybe it was the constant darkness, punctuated by only brief periods of faintly glowing light behaving in unexpected ways. When the sun hung low on the horizon, illusory suns surrounded it at the quadrants: parahelia, commonly called sundogs, according to Adrian. The Aurora Australis returned several times, not just green but in shades of pink, and Adrian explained that it had to do with how the chemical composition of the atmosphere changed at different altitudes.

Somehow, Adrian's scientific explanations made these sights more beautiful, rather than stripping the beauty away with the mystery.

Laurie, though felt the opposite. Her restless energy pushed Dan away by inches. Three times in the first week, Adrian caught her in closed areas of Karnak. Each time, he quietly and politely escorted her back to the 'safe' zones. Each time, Laurie turned her anger on Dan, demanding that  _he_  find out what Adrian was hiding.

By the end of the first week, Dan was painfully reminded of why he didn't take Laurie on stake-outs. She was phenomenal in a fight but had no patience; she'd spent it all when she lived in a cage for the sole purpose of keeping Jon Osterman happy. Now that she was free of the government's constraint, she was a creature of action, not contemplation.

Except for dinner each night and lunch most days, Adrian was also missing, locked away in his laboratory, working with Dan's blood and bone marrow. "Developing the parameters for the gene therapy," Adrian had explained, if that actually counted as an explanation. He'd made progress, though, as was displayed by the tablets Dan was now taking. "They're designed to shift the balance of certain key elements of your system — releasing, for example, stem cells normally contained in bone marrow into your bloodstream, so they can be harvested," was another of Adrian's vaguely helpful explanations.

Thank God, Adrian had given Dan the keys to the workshop housed in one of Karnak's outbuildings, and Dan — in his guise as Snow Owl — trudged out there in the darkness of each morning to begin contented hours of work. He maintained his gear. He upgraded some of his systems. He began new and innovative projects inspired by the well-appointed workshop.

He did anything, in fact, to take his mind off the fact that Laurie — latex-clad, furious, firebrand Laurie — was avoiding him, both out of bed and in it.

Dan wasn't obsessed with sex. He simply wasn't, at least not at this age. He was a long way from his early days as Nite Owl II, when the sheer power of his mask had breathed life into what had been, up to that point, a somewhat placid, boring existence. He still fondly remembered his prototype armor — a vast improvement over poor old Hollis' suit, which was about on the level of a cheap imported Halloween costume. Putting on that first armored suit, layers of knife-resistant synthetic fabric and fine-knit metal mesh, heat-dispersing natural fibers and sculpted rubber, had been like being reborn a god — at least until he'd met Jon and Adrian. That confidence had led to more than one memorable night (and a couple of weekends), though nothing long-term, until Laurie.

Maybe he'd just gotten used to it — and even he knew that attitude was a death-blow to any relationship. Whatever the case, he kept finding his thoughts sidetracked at the most inconvenient moments.

Like when he was sitting on the edge of the examination table in the cleanroom, entirely unwilling to lay on his back and make his body's current state even more obvious than it already was, given that he was back to wearing nothing but silk drawstring pants again.

Even trying to invoke the old anger — fifteen million people, gone, all because Dan and Rorschach had put together the clues a half hour too late — accomplished nothing. The rage inevitably burned away under the memory of how Ozymandias had just...  _stood there_  and let Dan bloody his face in a way that no one ever had before. How he'd accepted it, maybe even... welcomed it, in some sort of... Dan didn't know. Maybe penance. Judgment passed by the only mask who'd always been... loyal.

God, even thinking  _that_  made it worse, because there'd always been some sort of connection there. Nite Owl's loyalty to Ozymandias, bleeding over into Dan's friendship with Adrian.

He thought about the purple mask, still tucked in the pocket of his winter cloak, and his blood burned when he thought of Ozymandias' clear blue eyes surrounded by sculpted purple neoprene.

When the door opened, Dan nearly jumped out of his skin. He shifted and finally crossed his legs, trying to head off any awkward moments by asking, "More blood tests?"

"Actually, no," Adrian said, sounding calm as always, but perhaps with a slightly cheerful edge to his voice. Under the face shield, the inverse mask, covering Adrian's mouth and nose instead of his eyes, looked glaringly wrong, and Dan quickly pulled off his glasses, for once  _wanting_  his vision to blur. "Other than some minor issues — high cholesterol and mild irritation of the stomach lining — your system's a pleasure to work with."

That was  _not_  the sort of compliment that should make a man blush, but telling himself that didn't actually stop the heat from rising under his skin. He laughed and twisted a little awkwardly, using the cuff of his pants to polish his glasses.

"I guess that's good," he ventured, more to fill the silence, because Adrian was just standing there, too close for Dan's sanity.

"Daniel..." The touch on his arm, body-warm latex against bare skin, made him shiver. He turned and looked at the slightly blurred face behind the plastic shield, and even that couldn't blunt the sheer force of Adrian's presence when their eyes locked. "This is your last chance to refuse. I've finished the first stage of development. Once we begin your treatment, there's no going back," he said softly.

 _That_  was finally enough to distract him. As his circulatory system got everything back to normal, he uncrossed his legs and put his glasses back on. "I —"

The flash of metal threw his body into a whole other sort of overdrive as his brain processed  _gun_  and he twisted, catlike — owl-like — to throw himself off the examining table. One hand lashed out at the silver gun in Adrian's hand; the other clenched into a fist and lashed out, faster than a striking snake, at Adrian's cheekbone —

And  _stopped_  as Adrian moved, too fast for Dan to even see, jerking the gun out of reach and simply  _catching_  Dan's hand, absorbing the impact of the blow with only the slightest flex of his elbow and shoulder.

" _Daniel!"_  he said, not loudly but sharply, in that tone of command that no one disobeyed. More calmly, he said, "It's an air injector, Daniel."

Now that he looked, he could see it  _wasn't_  a gun — at least, not a normal one. There was a cartridge screwed to the underside of the muzzle. No sights, no slide, no ejection port.

"Shit," he said, exhaling forcefully, trying to get his heart to calm down. His system was flooded with adrenaline that made him tremble, now that he'd stopped moving — or  _been_  stopped, more accurately. How the hell had Adrian moved that quickly?

That thought made it that much more obvious that Adrian had  _allowed_  Dan to attack him five years ago. He could have stopped Dan effortlessly, but chose not to.

Then the remorse hit, and he said, "Oh, God, Adrian. I'm sorry. I just — reflex. Overtrained —"

"Daniel." This time, the name was spoken more gently. Adrian's hand moved away, clasping his other hand and the injector gun behind his back — lowering his defenses. "It's perfectly understandable."

"That doesn't make it right."

Adrian looked down and shook his head, his eyes hidden behind long, pale lashes. "Nothing will make it right, Daniel," he said softly, and suddenly they weren't talking about Dan's reflexive attack — or the mistrust that it showed, or seemed to show. "I would never expect —" He stopped, and his German accent was even thicker when he said, "I deserve your hatred, Daniel. I don't expect anything from you — certainly not —"

"Adrian," Dan interrupted, twisting his hand to catch Adrian's tightly. "No. God, I... I don't hate you."

But despite that, Adrian just flinched as though struck and shook his head. He took a deep, audible breath and asked, in a neutral tone, with no accent at all, "Did you wish to begin the treatment?"

Dan wanted to press the issue, but couldn't — not with Adrian looking so quietly downcast.  _Depressed, even. And shit,_  he'd forgotten about Laurie, but a quick look up at the observation window showed she wasn't even there.

It was all too much. Maybe it was the magnetism this close to the South Pole that was making them all a little crazy. "I'm sorry," he told Adrian as the other man's hand slipped from his, to rest at his side. "I shouldn't have just attacked like that. It  _really_  wasn't because of you — it's just, I see something that looks like a gun, and I react. It won't happen again, I promise."

Maybe Adrian smiled. In fact, Dan knew he did, but it was a fake smile, one that didn't reach his eyes. One that never escaped from behind the mask that was so wrong on his face. "Thank you, Daniel," he said in his perfect, calm, controlled voice.

Feeling sick inside, like he'd lost something he hadn't even known he had, he nodded and got back up onto the table. "Let's — Yes. I want to do this," he said, and quickly looked Adrian's way for just a moment. "I trust you."

* * *

Dan didn't feel any different.

Well, he did, but it had nothing to do with the series of air-assisted injections, except that his body ached in a half dozen new places. He didn't feel  _younger_.

No, this was something else, something that made him feel all twisted up inside. Laurie was avoiding him even more now, which was fine by him. When they did meet up in the hall or the room they barely shared, their exchanges were terse and hostile, and he had no idea why. The relationship that had been the center of his world for five years was crumbling, and he couldn't bring himself to care. What the hell was wrong with him?

To make it worse, Adrian was avoiding him. The night of his treatment, Dan went to dinner and found three covered plates laid out, with a folded, monogrammed card asking Dan to excuse Adrian for not joining him for dinner, pleading the need to work late in the lab. The next day, Dan ate lunch alone — bachelor style, once he realized Adrian wouldn't be joining him in the dining room. That night, when he went up to dinner, he found more covered plates and another brief note. More lab work.

By the fourth day, Dan was ready to climb the walls. He threw caution to the wind, put on his mask, and started exploring, driven by restlessness and loneliness and guilt. The embers inside him had blazed into a bonfire, thanks to Laurie's hateful words:  _That fucker's stringing us along, Dan, and you're too blindly loyal to your precious Ozymandias to see! You don't look a day younger!_

Any other time, what he found would have delighted him. On the outside, Karnak was laid out in a faithful recreation of the Egyptian temple complex, but no Egyptian architect had ever dreamed of its wonders. The hydroponics greenhouse explained the fresh food that made up the bulk of their meals (which had done wonders for Dan's waistline, prompting him to start considering modifying his suit). There was a workshop of Egyptian antiquities that Adrian was obviously restoring — a fortune in gold and precious gems and carvings, surrounded by magnifying lamps, tiny brushes, and fine-pointed tools. There was a swimming pool, a narrow rectangle three lanes wide that stretched for easily a hundred yards between columns, accessed through a room full of exercise equipment, with three mirrored walls and a padded floor.

Still, it took him two days to find  _Adrian_.

He wasn't in a lab. He was in another exercise room, this one three stories high, filled with targets and beams and cables crossing the otherwise empty chamber. Dan opened the door and only his goggles let him actually see Adrian in the pitch black room, twenty feet up in the air and  _running_  across a cable that couldn't have been a half inch in diameter. Only the fear of breaking Adrian's concentration kept Dan from calling out in alarm, but he was too late. Opening the door must have done it, because Adrian was suddenly no longer running — he was  _falling,_  and Dan broke into a mad dash, knowing he'd never get there in time, knowing that even if he did, he'd never be able to  _catch_  Adrian and he'd probably kill them both —

But Adrian  _landed_  with a twist at the last instant, legs flexing as his toes hit another cable. That broke the momentum of his fall just enough, and when he left that cable, Dan realized he'd never been in danger. He'd jumped, crossing empty space with absolute certainty of his surroundings, despite the darkness.

This time, he caught a rope that went slack under his weight, and as it flexed up, he let go and flipped, landing on an angled I-beam. That gave him the stability to push off and change direction, and suddenly he landed right in front of Daniel, crouching nearly to the ground, one hand stretched down, the other back. His balance was perfect, the landing nearly silent. And though there was no way he could've seen Daniel — there wasn't even any light coming in from the dark hall — he rose and looked directly into Daniel's goggles.

"Once again, I feel underdressed," he said, and he wasn't even out of breath, despite the sheen of sweat that covered his bare torso. He wore nothing but pants identical to the ones that Dan had worn for his medical treatments, except that Adrian's, of course, were purple instead of white.

"That was  _amazing,_ " Dan said sincerely, tearing his gaze away from looking at Adrian because he  _shouldn't_  be looking — not like that, not with his gloved hands itching with the urge to touch his muscled arm or chest. It was just to assure himself that Adrian was unhurt, of course. There was nothing else behind that desire. There couldn't be.

"Thank you. You're welcome to join me," he said, moving away from Daniel, toward the door. A moment later, an array of spotlights lit up, though they seemed to make the room more disorienting, rather than actually illuminating the space to let him get a sense of the whole.

"Have you always trained like this?" he asked, because he had to say  _something_. One glimpse back over his shoulder showed Adrian rubbing a towel over his body, and Daniel wasn't about to watch that. Bad enough that one glimpse was seared into his memory, as though photographed for later perusal.

"In a way, yes. I keep having to increase the difficulty to truly challenge myself. Since the treatment, my senses are sharper. You'll notice the same — for example, increased spatial awareness."

There was no sign of any resentment or anger about Dan's unwarranted, reflexive attack. There was nothing but courtesy and control in Adrian's voice. He was the perfect gentleman, the unflappable leader, calm and collected as always.

There wasn't a hint of German in his accent.

Dan was talking to Adrian Veidt, businessman and philanthropist — not to the man he'd glimpsed in bits and pieces over the last week and a half, the one who flew Archimedes through a storm to see the aurora, the man who'd laughed when Dan had called him a pagan. The man who'd stood in the exam room with his hands behind his back, as if giving Dan the option of attacking him again.

He was walking toward Adrian before he even registered that he'd started moving, and he saw how the other man tensed an instant before Dan's gloved fingers touched his bare shoulder. "Adrian..."

"Daniel." The word came out soft and somehow  _raw._

Dan took the last step, laying his hand over the curve of Adrian's shoulder. He couldn't feel the heat of his skin, but he felt hard muscle and bone, and thought of Ozymandias' armored costume. "Adrian, what's wrong?"

A tiny ripple of tension passed through Adrian's body, not even enough to be called a shiver. "I... I don't deserve you, Daniel," he said, the accent suddenly  _there,_  so thick and heavy that it was like someone else was speaking. He didn't turn to look back at Daniel. The muscles in his shoulders bunched as he bowed his head.

His stomach flipped, as if he'd come around a corner and suddenly stepped out onto a precipice, his toes hanging out over a dark, empty void. A sense of  _loss_  struck him hard enough to freeze the breath in his throat, and he didn't know what he was losing.

"Talk to me, Adrian," he urged, not even trying to keep the worry from his voice.

" _Please,"_  he whispered, twisting, pulling away but stepping back at the same time, so it wasn't quite as obvious. He looked into Dan's goggles, and for one instant, his blue eyes seemed full of darkness and pain, gone in a blink, replaced by the polite businessman's mask that characterized Adrian Veidt.

It  _hurt,_  Dan realized, feeling the impact of those calm, lifeless eyes like a blow to the gut.

Coolly, Adrian continued, "You should see to Laurie. I know she isn't happy —"

"This isn't about her," Dan snapped, catching Adrian's shoulders, gloved fingers digging into bare flesh as though to keep him from pulling away. Dan had no illusions that he could actually  _hold_  Adrian against his will, but he wasn't really thinking too clearly.

Adrian tensed. His chin came up and his eyes narrowed, but he didn't drop the towel that was clenched in his fists. "I don't mean to come between you two. As soon as she either agrees to the tests or decides not to undergo the treatment — as soon as your treatment is finished — you'll never have to see me again," he said, the words coming too fast now, no longer quite as smooth and polished as they should have been.

Dan's fingers clenched hard enough to bruise.  _"What?"_  he demanded incredulously. "I'm not — Adrian, I'm not  _using_  you for this treatment, and then... abandoning you."

The exhale was barely audible, but for Adrian — composed, controlled Adrian — it was practically a scream. "Daniel... I  _can't,_ " he said, shifting his weight back as though testing his ability to pull free.

"Can't  _what?"_

" _I can't do this!_ " he snapped, throwing the towel aside, flattening his palms against Daniel's armored chest. His cheeks were flushed as they hadn't been from his exertion, his blue eyes expressing something Daniel could see but couldn't quite understand.

"I don't —"

"Of course, you don't," he said with a harsh little laugh, closing his eyes, shaking his head. "You never could. I made certain..."

"Adrian, what the  _hell_  are you talking —"

He cut off as Adrian lifted one hand, suddenly brushing his lips with warm, bare fingers, and his blood seemed to catch fire at that soft touch. Adrian didn't look up right away — didn't even open his eyes until he'd taken a breath as though needing to steady himself.

"Daniel. Please. I don't allow  _anyone_  this close," he finally said, looking up, his eyes wide and dark. His hand shook as he lowered it to his side, and he pulled against Daniel's hold again.

This time, Daniel let go, off-balance and breathless and dizzy. "I'm — I've always been —" he said, though he didn't have the words for whatever he was thinking. He didn't have the  _thoughts_  for whatever he was thinking or feeling.

"I know," Adrian said gently, sounding unaccountably grateful. "It means a great deal to me, Daniel. But —" He stopped himself. Shook his head.

"But?"

"I'm  _alone,_  Daniel. I've always been alone, and I always will be."

"No. No, Adrian, you don't have to be —"

"Daniel," Adrian interrupted, reaching up to close his hands around Daniel's wrists. His touch was gentle but firm, and when he pushed, Daniel let his hands fall away from Adrian's shoulders. "You have the one you want. You have Laurie. At least one of us should be happy."

Dan shook his head, still feeling the pressure of Adrian's hands even when he let go. When Adrian stepped back, he felt miles away. "Who?" he finally asked, because he couldn't imagine  _any_  woman who wouldn't want Adrian. "Who is she?"

Adrian closed his eyes and sighed. "Not 'she', Daniel," he whispered.

Then he was gone, turning on one heel, sweeping up the towel, disappearing through the door with quick, graceful steps, as it all fell into place.


	7. Ice

**Part 7: Ice**

_There is a curious, little-known sport called curling. It is played on ice, and involves teams attempting to influence the trajectory of a polished granite stone by sweeping brooms across the surface of the ice. By the time the stone is released, the path is already planned, the spin already imparted to the stone. All that remains is to fine-tune the path the stone will take, to lead it to its target as if it were going there of its own accord. It is regarded by some as being akin to chess._

_By the time I pushed Dan off-balance, almost all the pieces were in place._

_Laurie's path was complicated. Caffeine and other stimulants broke her away from Dan's sleep schedule. Her food was laced with a chemical mix designed to increase paranoia, restlessness, and anxiety. The hormone blockers were more difficult to administer — I couldn't risk cross-contamination to Dan — but once she was on a separate sleeping schedule, I was able to aerosolize the compound. The dosage wasn't precise, but I could afford to be sloppy, much as I coudn't abide the thought._

_Daniel's diverging path followed a simpler chemical trail of pheromones and stimulants administered in his daily medications. His breakfast was, by necessity, laced with the same compounds as Laurie's, but that served my purpose. The lunches and dinners I provided were free of drugs, and his subconscious mind was quick to pick up the positive associations — and the negative ones that came with being around Laurie._

_They weren't separated — not yet._

_But they would be._

* * *

Dan went through the next few days in a solitary daze. Adrian... Adrian wanted  _him_. That was the only conclusion he could draw from Adrian's unspoken confession, unthinkable as it was.

Or... was it?

He retreated to Archie's cockpit, sitting at the silent, dark controls as he picked apart  _everything_  he could remember — every word, every interaction, every glance, not just since Adrian had invited him to dinner weeks ago but since the very first day they'd met, soon after Hollis had passed the mantle of Nite Owl to Dan.

Oh, he'd suspected Adrian was gay, at least at first. He hadn't really cared one way or another. Hell, anyone who grew up in the sixties or seventies at least  _tried_... well, anything, actually. There were more than a few nights that Dan himself couldn't remember, passed in a haze of smoke or colorful acid, and if the bodies weren't all feminine curves, it was all sensation, which was the whole point. One more way to rebel against the strait-laced corporate banker lifestyle that had thankfully never manifested.

But Adrian... wanted  _him?_  He couldn't see it. Oh, he  _sort of_  could — the touches, the way he paid attention to Dan beyond any expectation as a courteous host... even the way their encounter had ended five years ago, when he'd refused to fight back. God, even when he  _had_  fought back, he hadn't unleashed any of his real skill. Against Rorschach? Absolutely. He hadn't pulled any punches. But against Dan?

No.

He'd disarmed Dan of his only lethal weapon and then fought to disorient and incapacitate, not to damage. Not to kill.

And now that the thought was in his head, he couldn't let it go. He'd always... admired Ozymandias — his elegance, his sleek lethality, his dominance, his charisma. And now, all he could see when he closed his eyes was Adrian, stripped of his masks, eyes wide and dark, face flushed, body tense, and he  _wanted._

God, he wanted.

Hunger finally drove him back into the main complex. He walked the heated path through another blizzard — there seemed to be blizzards every other day here — and went through the automatic doors without really looking at where he was going.

"Daniel." Adrian's German accent turned it into three syllables: dah-nee-el.

He turned, startled, fur-lined cloak slapping against his boots as he spotted Adrian. He was standing off to the side, arms folded over his chest, probably freezing from the blast of arctic air let in by the giant doors. He was only wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, both black, making his pale skin and blond hair look washed out, without his usual imperial purple to add depth and color.

With quick, sure motions, Dan undid the clasps holding his cloak and whipped it off his shoulders. He swung it and saw Adrian flinch, though he didn't look up from his study of the floor. He settled the cloak over Adrian's shoulders and pulled him away from the doors that hadn't even finished opening all the way, moving with slow grandeur that was incredibly impractical for blizzard conditions.

"Are you trying to give yourself pneumonia?" he scolded, keeping his arm around Adrian's shoulders, feeling the way the other man shivered. Dan was an inch shorter, but somehow, Adrian felt smaller, more vulnerable, as if some dynamic inner force was just gone from him.

Moving subtly, trying to step away from Dan without actually fighting back, Adrian quietly said, "I'm fine, Daniel. I only wanted to ask you to come to the exam room tomorrow, for your next treatment. I'm sorry to disturb you."

Fear spiked through Dan and his arm tightened. He herded Adrian into the next room, where it was warmer, but held the cloak in place. "Adrian," he said, faltering as he realized he didn't know what else to say. He didn't want  _this_  Adrian, tentative and apologetic and diminished.

But —

Oh God, he had no right to  _want_  Adrian at all. Not with Laurie and their past and... and  _Adrian_  doing something stupid like standing unprotected in the face of a blizzard, and hot anger scorched away the fear. Adrian wasn't even looking up to meet his eyes.

In one swift move, he stopped Adrian in his tracks, caught him by the shoulders, spun him around, and slammed him back against the closed door. Adrian's head came up, eyes wide — not flashing with anger, but shocked...  _Vulnerable._

Dan's gloves dug into the thick cape that covered Adrian's body. With a wordless sound that was almost a growl, he pushed close and found Adrian's lips with his own. Adrian gasped and Dan captured it, licking into the other man's mouth, tasting him with a groan that was full of disbelief and need and more than a little rage.

His hands slid up to Adrian's jaw as he backed away from the kiss, reality intruding on the dizzying realization that he was kissing Adrian,  _tasting_ him and he knew how wrong it was, and that he'd never wanted anything more in his life. He opened his eyes and green telemetry sparkled in his peripheral vision as he realized he was still masked. So he could clearly see Adrian's shock, the way his pupils were dark and huge, lips parted breathlessly.

"Ozy," he whispered, the name slipping out as the fire inside him banked, turning into something tentative and wary.

Blue eyes closed as he shifted under the cape. One hand emerged, moving into the space between them, space that increased as Dan let go of Adrian's face and stepped back, suddenly very afraid, like he'd run across a burning bridge, and there was no way back.

Adrian's hand turned over, fingers opening to show the mask, sculpted purple neoprene unfolding like a blossom on his palm, as though he were silently asking a question that Dan couldn't answer.

And when Dan stayed silent, throat closed too tight to speak, Adrian did ask. "Why do you have this, Daniel?"

"It — I... I picked it up," he said guiltily, suddenly thankful for the anonymity of the goggles, the mask that covered his cheekbones enough to hide at least some of the way his face flushed. The mask had become a sort of talisman for him, weighty with meaning that he couldn't quite define or articulate.

"And did not return it to me," he asked, his accent thick, his tone like ice. He reached up and removed the cape in a heavy slide off his shoulders. He held it out, expectant and imperious, and Dan automatically took it back. "You chose Laurie, Daniel, and I have respected that choice. I ask that you do the same," he said, and walked past Dan with steady, even steps, shoulders set, mask held firmly in his fingers, and Dan couldn't even breathe, much less speak, as Adrian crossed the room and exited through the far door.

As the door clicked shut, Dan let out a sound that might have been a cry of pain as he turned, slamming his fist against the stone wall, hard enough to bruise even through his armor.

* * *

"What's grey goo?"

Laurie's demand cut through the miserable fog that had settled over Dan's mind. He hadn't even heard her come in. Now, he looked up, putting his glasses back on to bring her into sharp focus.

"What?"

"What's grey goo?" she repeated more sharply, crossing the room. She was dressed as stealthily as she ever got, in a black silk shirt, black leggings, and high black boots. Privately, Dan had always suspected she would rather have been the daughter of The Silhouette, instead of Silk Spectre, though Laurie definitely wasn't a lesbian.

He managed to wrench his mind over to her question and said, somewhat automatically, "A doomsday scenario based on runaway nanotechnology in which self-replicating robots on a nanometer scale consume the environment and turn it into a nonviable state — turning the planet into 'grey goo'. It's an ecophage —"

"Hold it," she snapped, raising a hand. "Nano-what?"

"Tiny robots," he said, irritated that he had to dumb it down. She was smart — a lot smarter than even she believed — but she never  _used_  her intelligence, preferring instead to get through life based on looks, guts, and attitude. "Imagine robots so small that a million of them could fit into a drop of water. They're... they're theorized to be the ultimate solution for everything from manufacturing and repairs to curing incurable diseases."

"Well, that asshole" — meaning Adrian — "is into them. He had a video conference and said he had proof that the 'grey goo' scenario wasn't going to happen."

"You sat in on a video conference with him?" Dan asked, feeling like he was three steps behind her, and not liking it.

"Of course not." She huffed and sat down on the sofa across from him, not next to him as she once might have. His lips seemed to burn with the kiss he'd stolen. A ball of ice settled in his gut as he realized only then that he'd cheated on her — and with  _Adrian_.

This time, it was harder to get his mind back to the conversation. "Then what?"

"I used that black box of yours."

"You  _what?_ " he demanded, bare feet slapping on the ground as he sat upright. The black box was a device used to tap into computer transmissions through a serial cable splice, a tiny wireless transmitter, and a receiver that could be plugged into a monitor for realtime datastream playback.

"Don't worry. It worked perfectly —"

"You  _idiot! He'll think I_  did it!"

Her eyes went wide and she gaped at him. "So? Dan, that's why we're here! To find out what that fucker's up to!"

Dan put a hand to his forehead, shaking his head incredulously. "God. Laurie, how could you do that without talking to me first?"

"Talking to you? Like I need your  _permission_  to do my job?" she snapped, surging to her feet.

"To use  _my_  gear, yes!"

"You know what? I'm sick of this shit! I'm sick of you forgetting what that bastard did, and not caring, and not supporting me —"

"You're the one who wanted to be here!"

"To  _stop him!_ "

"Oh, you weren't looking to 'stop him' when it came to giving you your youth back!"

Her temper broke first. She lashed out, not with a slap but with a punch that snapped his head around, catching him off-guard. He staggered, grabbing the back of the sofa for balance, and threw up a hand defensively, but she didn't press her attack. She stared at him, her face going pale with shock, and whispered his name, her voice breaking.

Swamped by anger and guilt and misery, but always the peacemaker, Dan watched as her eyes filled with tears, and his heart broke. He held out his hands to her and she ran to him, burying her face against his chest as she sobbed. He kissed her hair and rubbed her back, burying his own misery for her sake.

"I hate it here," she whispered between gasped little breaths. "I hate  _him_. I hate everything about him."

 _Not enough that you won't use him,_  Dan thought, biting his tongue. Guilt made him flinch, though, as he wondered... was  _he_  using Adrian, and for more than just the elusive promise of youth? For years, he'd doubted Lori, never certain if she loved him or if she loved the idea of being Silk Spectre to his Nite Owl — if any mask could take his place and make her equally happy. And, to be fair, they had little in common outside their masks. If they were living a lie, he was as much to blame as she was.

Where did that put Adrian? Where did that put Ozymandias? Now that the blinders had been stripped away, Dan could see it had been there all along — a deep, magnetic attraction that drew him to facets of Ozymandias, facets of Adrian, in a way that let him hate the man at the same time as he wanted and needed and even worshipped him.

And that kiss... when Adrian had gone soft and compliant under his demand... It had fired something inside him, something he'd never even imagined. Just thinking about it pushed everything else out of his mind, and his arms tightened around Laurie. Surprised, she looked up, and he kissed her the same way, feeling  _her_  gasp and melt into the kiss as Adrian had. More, even.

A tiny part of him was relieved. Maybe Adrian had been an anomaly — overcompensation for the troubles he and Laurie were having. Determined not to let go without a fight, he ran his hands down her body, feeling soft curves over sleek muscle; she'd benefited from the healthy diet her, too, even if she hadn't accepted Adrian's cooking. And that thought made him think of the  _other_  kiss, that razor edge of danger under it, knowing that Adrian could kill him effortlessly, but wasn't even fighting back. There was an incredible power there.

He wanted it.

 _Laurie,_  he told himself, forcing himself to focus on her, though he couldn't quite drive Adrian out of his mind. Together, they made it to the bed, clothing falling in a trail across the room. Dan pushed Laurie down a little more roughly than he might have, but her nails raked encouragingly across his back. He caught one wrist, then the other, and pushed them into the pillows above her head, and she let out a breathy sigh and arched up to kiss him again, nipping at his lips. He felt  _alive_  as he hadn't for... for years with her, and if the ghost of Adrian was in the back of his mind, at least he was aware that this was  _Laurie_  beneath him.

And maybe that was where it all went wrong. Maybe that's why he missed some essential part of the equation, some component or step in the process, because the passion that had flamed so brightly between them... died out. As their touches went from confident and needy to tentative and uncertain, and their kisses turned into anxious pecks, Dan could have sworn he heard the last dying gasp of their relationship hanging between them in the silence that followed.


	8. Fire

**Part 8: Fire**

_When a man wants something badly enough to simply take it, guilt is nearly always the result. Only when he is truly challenged — when he is forced to look at his want and accept it fully, turning want into need — will he take what he wants without the chains of regret and remorse. Only then will he move forward with minimal risk of turning back upon the path._

_Dan has no alternative. He doesn't know this, of course. He never will. He will look at his desire until it turns from want to need. And in the taking, he will forever separate himself from Laurie, setting her free to walk the path I have set for her._

_With each step I take on my own path, I leave casualties fallen in my wake. That these two will be bloodless should be a comfort. I find the taking of life — even mere violence — abhorrent. It is a necessary tool, but one to be used only when there is no other alternative._

_And yet, I am awake through the night, thinking of the pain in Dan's future, knowing that the reward — his youth, restored, as mine has been — isn't nearly enough to compensate for his suffering._

_Inside, I bleed for him._

* * *

It seemed like Dan was fated to be more nervous with each visit to the exam room, rather than getting used to it. At least this time, he didn't need to struggle to hide his body's desire; that had turned to ash last night, with Laurie, and even the memory of that one stolen kiss hadn't reawakened it.

Nor did the blurry sight of Adrian — Dan had intentionally left his glasses on the shelf he slid out from under the exam table. They exchanged courteous good mornings, but said little else, except when Adrian needed to tell Dan to move, exposing the site of the next injection. Adrian even minimized his touches, using the least pressure, guiding Dan with brief words instead of a gentle hand.

When they were done, Adrian left without another word. Dan put on his glasses and looked up at the viewing window, but he didn't see Laurie. He hadn't seen her, in fact, since last night. He'd left, thinking to walk off his tension, and when he got back to the room, she'd been gone.

With nothing else to do, he changed into his suit and winter gear. It seemed his only comfort was going to be in tinkering with Archie's systems. The pocket where he'd kept the mask felt empty — the same way he felt empty.

Why the hell had he kept the mask? At first, it had been obvious — he'd picked it up without thinking, only to realize later that it was proof he'd been in a restricted area of the complex. As time went on, he thought less in terms of returning the mask and more simply about having it with him, like a talisman. He hadn't thought about Adrian's feelings, though. He hadn't put himself in Adrian's place, asking how he would feel if someone took his hood or his goggles. And for him to find it after that kiss — no,  _during_  that kiss. He must have. Almost no time passed between the end of the kiss and the revelation of the mask.

Betrayal after betrayal, that.

No, it was better for him to stay away from both Adrian and Laurie, before he could screw things up even worse. As it was, Laurie probably felt trapped here, with no way to leave the continent. Dan was trapped by the incomplete medical procedure. Adrian was trapped by his offer, not just to Dan but to Laurie, too, who hadn't even started the therapy. Even if she started it today — which Dan knew she wouldn't — they'd be here for another two  _months,_  imposing on Adrian's privacy, unwelcome guests in his sanctuary...

Just out of range of the motion sensor, he clenched his fist, feeling the ache of bruised knuckles.  _I'm sorry, Adrian,_  he thought, and closed his cloak, heading out into the Antarctic winter.

* * *

Up close, fluorescent lights played havoc with his goggles, so he left them and his mask on the workbench. He'd learned to carry his normal glasses and was wearing those instead, peering over the magnifying lamp as he carefully touched the soldering iron to the wire. Silver spread along the stripped copper in a thin, perfect layer. While the solder was still hot, he pressed the wire in place and held it steady with one hand and put the soldering iron into the coiled stand nearby.

When the joint was secure, he sat back and took a deep breath. It was chilly in the workroom, but the air was refreshing, somehow clinical and sterile. He could think —

"You missed lunch."

Startled, he jumped and spun around, sending the four-legged stool to clatter against the concrete floor. Adrian — no,  _Ozymandias_  was there, with a sumptuous, thick cloak of what looked like velvet-lined neoprene covering his costume. A hood fell over his mantle like a cowl, adding bulk to his shoulders. He wore a mask, but not the one Dan had picked up; this one, though it was also purple neoprene, had lenses like liquid gold mirrors, lending Ozymandias a cold, impersonal, imperious air.

"How — How long have you been there?" Dan stammered, his heart racing at the threat... and the allure. Everything about Ozymandias, from his posture to his heavier winter accessories — thicker gloves, thicker boots, the heavy cloak that swept the floor and hung around his shoulders — declared his uncompromising authority.

Adrian had never answered a question he didn't feel like answering — nor had Ozymandias. "You also missed dinner."

Automatically, Dan looked above the workbench for a clock, but there wasn't one; it was his workbench back home that had a clock hanging over the center. He programmed it with alarms to remind himself to take breaks.

Without waiting for an answer, Ozymandias asked, "Looking for this, perhaps?"

Ice stabbed through Dan as he turned back. In one hand, Ozymandias was holding a box, the size of three paperback books stacked together, with four thick antennas sticking up at the corners, like the legs of an upside-down table. Between his fingers dangled a smaller device, easily concealed in the palm of a hand, with a wire on one end and a small, stubby antenna on the other.

His black box.

The explanation was on his lips, but he kept silent. He wasn't going to throw Laurie to the wolves — even though he knew she wouldn't hesitate to do so to him.

Those mirrored gold eyes gave nothing away as Ozymandias stalked forward. He set the two components on the workbench almost gently, but the  _click_  of plastic against enamel was just as ominous as if he'd thrown them against the wall.

"I do not ask for trust, Daniel. But I  _will_  have respect in my own home," he said quietly, with all the force of a deadly threat.

"Ozy... After what you did... I mean, last time we were here —"

"Last time you were here,  _I saved the world from destruction,_ " he said coldly, his German accent thick. One hand lashed out, pinning Dan back against the workbench.

Dan's anger snapped. "You  _murdered_  fifteen million people!"

"And saved  _your_  life!"

For years, Dan had known Ozymandias was an arrogant man, but that statement was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire. Rage flooded Dan's brain and body; he punched without thinking, without even telegraphing his intent, the decision came so quickly, and the blow landed solidly beneath Ozymandias' left eye.

He staggered back, one hand swiping at the clasp of his cloak. It fell into his hand and he spun, bringing the cloak up in a swirl of heavy neoprene and velvet just in time to block Dan's next punch. Dan ducked under the cape and then jumped Ozymandias' low leg sweep. He braced a foot on the overturned stool and pushed off, leaping up and back onto the workbench. As Ozymandias twisted back to face him and rose, Dan kicked at the side of his head. Dropping the heavy cloak, he ducked just in time, and Dan's boot barely brushed the flying strands of blond hair.

Then Dan's other leg collapsed at a blow to the back of his knee. He crashed back into the wall and fell heavily onto the workbench. He managed to land a kick against Ozymandias' chest and sent him reeling, buying Dan enough room to roll off the workbench and up to his feet. Hampered by his heavy winter cloak, Ozymandias couldn't block Dan's punch to his mouth, but he deflected the next two, backpedaling until he was almost up against Archimedes' hull.

"I don't care how smart you are," Dan snarled between panted breaths, staring into those lifeless gold eyes. "You don't  _know_  that they were going to start a nuclear war."

"I saved you by bringing you here," Ozymandias answered icily, ducking Dan's next punch. Blood trickled from his split lower lip. He rolled beneath Archimedes' hull, and Dan's punch landed against the metal. Without his armored gloves, the blow sent agony shooting up his arm.

"What the  _hell_  do you mean?" he barked, cradling his hand for a moment as he struggled to push the pain out of his mind. He dropped to one knee, searching for any sign of where Ozymandias was.

"How do you think you and that sociopath connected Veidt Industries to Pyramid?" Ozymandias demanded. He was somewhere up near the front section of the ship. Dan rushed in that direction, still crouched low.

 _Keep him talking,_  Dan thought. "You didn't exactly leave an obvious trail, Ozy. I broke into your files."

Ozymandias' laugh was low and rich, echoing down from somewhere high up. Dan crouched lower, wishing he hadn't switched his goggles for his glasses. He needed the telemetry. He needed every edge he could get, against a fighter of Ozymandias' caliber.

"Daniel," Ozymandias chided, a little farther off to Daniel's right. He was moving again; Dan sidestepped, moving back out from under Archimedes. Ozymandias continued, "I can recite the first ten thousand digits of pi. Would I realistically use the title of a  _book_  as the password to encrypt sensitive data unless I wanted the encryption broken?"

Daniel's steps faltered and he flattened a hand against the cool hull, looking up in the direction of Ozymandias' voice. "You — You  _wanted_  us to find you," he said softly.

"I wanted to  _save_  you," Ozymandias said, and his voice was right overhead. Dan looked sharply up in time to see a dark blur leap from the crest of Archimedes' hull, to land in a crouch just inches from Dan. "To get you out of the blast zone —"

Shock gave way to renewed anger. He said it so  _casually,_  the same way military leaders spoke of 'collateral damage' and 'acceptable losses'. With an enraged roar, Dan caught Ozymandias around the waist and rushed him across the workshop, slamming him back into the bench hard enough to send tools and half-assembled gadgets flying. Ozymandias gasped at the impact. Instead of fighting back, he slapped his gloved hands into the edge of the bench, bracing himself.

"I had to time it perfectly. I had to get you out of the city before the attack, but late enough that you wouldn't be able to stop it. I  _couldn't_  allow you to die, Daniel."

Incredulous, Dan shook his head, feeling the sculpted edges of Ozymandias' armor under his hands. "You — You killed all those people, and you're saying —"

"I didn't activate the device until your craft was well outside the nearest blast range. I was tracking your flight." He shook his head, disarrayed wisps of blond hair falling over the edge of his mask.

Stunned, Dan stared at him, searching what he could see of Ozymandias' face. He wanted to tear the mask away but he couldn't move — he could barely even breathe. It was  _unthinkable_  that Ozymandias had... had anticipated... had planned...

The touch on his jaw tore him from his thoughts. The neoprene glove was cool enough to make him flinch, though Ozymandias' fingers were gentle. "Daniel," he said softly, his thumb tracing the line of Dan's cheekbone, just brushing the lower edge of his glasses. "My beautiful Daniel. You underestimate yourself again — how very much you mean to me..."

The anger didn't fade, but desire rose up under it. With a small, broken, desperate sound, he kissed Ozymandias, hands sliding up over his mantle, clenching his shoulders and holding him in place against the workbench. Ozymandias' lips parted and he gave himself over to the kiss entirely, his gloved hand sliding over Dan's jaw to curve around the nape of his neck.

Fifteen million sacrificed, and yet Ozymandias... He had — he had deluded himself into thinking he'd saved Dan? The anger burned hotter and he bit down on Ozymandias' lip, his hands tight enough to bruise his unprotected fingertips. He wanted to attack again. He wanted to strike at him — to make him  _pay_  for all the death, all the pain, everything he'd done to humanity...

And he  _wanted_  Ozymandias. More than anything in the world.

The kiss tasted of blood and desperation. Nite Owl's armor was too hot, too tight, making his breath come in little gasps but he couldn't stop kissing Ozymandias. His fingers dug at the elaborate armor, but he had no idea where the clasps or zippers were.

He gave up on the mantle and dropped his hand to Ozymandias' belt. Ozymandias gasped and broke the kiss, tentatively asking, "Daniel?"

There were too many layers to the question, tangled up in that one word. He couldn't begin to answer them all. He tore at the belt clasp until it disengaged, clattering to the concrete floor. Ozymandias shivered and looked down, saying again, "Daniel..."

"Shut up," Dan interrupted, his voice tight, and silenced Ozymandias with another bruising kiss.

Ozymandias pressed against his body, legs spreading to allow Dan to fit against him, armor-to-armor. Dan unclasped his own belt and dropped it, hands finding the vertical tabs that sealed his torso armor to his leggings. With a shiver, Ozymandias pulled away from the kiss just long enough to look down with those blank gold eyes.

The temptation to rip off the mask hit again, but Dan couldn't bring himself to reach for it. He didn't know what he'd see in Adrian's hidden blue eyes. He didn't know if he  _wanted_  to see.

He stepped back just enough to roughly turn Ozymandias around, shoving him against the workbench again, making him grunt in surprise. "Daniel —"

"Be  _quiet!_ " The command came out more desperate than forceful. He distracted himself by searching for the fastenings that held Ozymandias' armor together. The layers fell away; at the sound of neoprene hitting concrete, Ozymandias straightened up, turning to look over his shoulder.

Before he could do more than part his lips and draw breath, Dan slammed a hand into the middle of his back, forcing him down. His gloved hands slapped down on the workbench as if he were going to fight, and Dan snatched at his right wrist, wrenching it back until the strain in Ozymandias' shoulder was enough to stop him from fighting.

But... no. That wasn't right. He could fight; he could break this hold effortlessly. Dizzy with need, Dan shook his head to try and clear it, because he knew Ozymandias was stronger, faster, the better fighter.

_Why wasn't he fighting back?_

Ozymandias shifted and a piece of his armor slipped away, revealing not another layer but skin, pale and perfect. The sight hypnotized Dan; he touched, running bare fingers over skin stretched over taut muscle, and Ozymandias let out a sound that was nearly a whimper.

No longer hesitating, Dan kicked at Ozymandias' ankles. Ozymandias' back arched and he lifted his head, his free left hand clenching into a fist against the workbench. "Dan—" he started, cutting off when Daniel pushed his wrist up higher, up between his shoulderblades. Only then did he try to twist free, muscles straining, but Dan had the advantage of leverage.

But he stopped fighting the moment Dan dropped his other hand between Ozymandias' legs. He hissed, jaw clenched, turning just enough that Dan could see his profile, starkly shadowed by the overturned fluorescent magnifying lamp. God, he was  _perfect_ , the creation of a master artist, flawless even with the bruise blossoming under his eye and the blood trailing from his split lip.

"Ozymandias," Dan whispered, his hand shaking as he traced patterns over Ozymandias' skin. "God, you're —"

Abruptly, Ozymandias went tense and his head came up as much as his strained posture would allow. He gasped in a breath as if to speak, but he was interrupted as another voice spoke.

" _What are you doing?"_

Laurie.


	9. Check

**Part 9: Check**

_In chess, check or checkmate is a binary situation. Only a novice player may hear check and not see his king's escape, which turns check into checkmate._

_Imagine, though, playing chess on an infinite board, with infinite pieces that can all move as queens and no clear delineation between the sides. No black or white. This is the game I play — life-sized chess on a board that spans time and space, where the removal of one pawn can cost fifteen million lives. It is a game that cannot be won; it can only be prolonged until it is, in the end, lost._

_I heard the activation of the outer door as Daniel stripped off my armor. If Dan had been thinking clearly, he would have realized that my armor came off too easily; it wasn't secured for combat. Of course, he hadn't been thinking clearly for days._

_It was unacceptable that his touch nearly distracted me from hearing the inner door. Through this whole venture, I'd been having difficulty maintaining focus — something that had always come as effortlessly to me as breathing. But then, I'd never allowed Daniel to get this close._

_What opportunities had I missed?_

_Just in time, I covered the sound of Laurie's arrival with a wordless encouragement to keep Daniel focused. I turned my head to draw his eyes back to me. I faced the inner door; Laurie would clearly see the wounds I'd allowed Daniel to inflict._

_She entered almost precisely as I had predicted — perhaps sooner than would have been ideal, but the situation was damning enough._

_The board was set. The pieces were in play._

_Now, all that remained was to determine if this was check or checkmate. To know that, I had to learn if the last piece was a pawn or my opponent._

* * *

For one horrified moment, Dan could only stare at Laurie, whose eyes were fixed to the body pinned under him. With a gasp, Dan let go of Adrian's wrist and stepped back, terribly conscious of how he nearly tripped over the fallen pieces of Adrian's armor. Adrian turned away from Laurie, hiding his bloodied face, easing his arm back from where Dan had had it pinned painfully high up between his shoulder blades.

"Laurie," Dan said, wanting to go to her, to tell her it wasn't what it looked like, but he wanted to stay and tell Adrian the same thing, or to at least apologize to him. God, this wasn't like him! He didn't do this! He  _never_  did this!

She shook her head, her eyes huge in a face that had gone ashen. Her mouth worked but she couldn't quite say anything but, "No." Clumsily, she backed away. One step. Two steps.

Then she turned, wrenching open the inner door, rushing through the airlock-style antechamber so fast that a gust of icy arctic air rushed in, despite the chamber's design.

"Laurie!" Dan shouted after her, reaching the door just as it closed. His face was already chilled from the frigid wind, but not nearly as cold as the ball of ice in his gut. How could he have done this — to her, to Adrian, to himself?

He wasn't dressed to go outside. He flattened his hands against the inner door, trying to take control of the situation again, remembering in a flash how Adrian had put a hand on his stomach and taught him how to breathe. Had Adrian wanted Dan then? He must have — he didn't imply this was a new feeling. And... God, if he actually  _had_  intentionally left the clues to get Dan out of the city...

No. He couldn't think about that now.

Noise made him turn and look back in time to see Adrian pulling the heavy winter cloak around himself. He wasn't facing Dan. God only knew what he was thinking.

"Adrian —"

"Don't." The interruption was soft, barely a whisper, but it cut through Dan's resolve like a bullet. Still turned away, Adrian bent to pick up the pieces of his armor, silently reassembling his costume. He pulled his cloak tightly closed before he turned to look at Dan, or at least in Dan's direction. The blood from his lip was smeared across his jaw; the wound had reopened and a fresh trickle was tracing over his skin. His left cheek was already blossoming a dark red that would soon turn to purple.

But despite that, he crossed the room with steady, authoritative steps, walking right toward the door. Dan wished he had some idea what to say, but he couldn't. He could only get out of Adrian's way. He wanted to crawl away somewhere and die, he felt so miserable, but that was the coward's way out. He had to find some way to put this right, both for Laurie and for Adrian.

Adrian stopped at the door. One hand, still gloved, emerged to touch the handle, but he didn't disengage the latch. He turned and looked in Dan's direction, quietly saying, "I'm sorry. Laurie should never..." He trailed off and bowed his head as if guilty or ashamed of what had happened.

 _He_  was apologizing?

Dan shook his head, lifting a hand to reach for Adrian, before he caught himself. He'd done enough to Adrian — he wouldn't want Dan's offer of comfort. "No. Adrian, you... you didn't do anything. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I — I attacked you —" He cut off, the sickness churning through his gut, silencing him as tears filled his eyes.

Adrian let out a broken little laugh. "You don't think I deserve that, and far... far worse," he said, his head coming up, as though listening to something. He turned away and yanked open the inner door, and Dan could just barely hear a high-pitched screaming.

"Laurie!" he gasped, and was on Adrian's heels as the other man rushed into the airlock.

Adrian turned on him, holding out one gloved hand. "Don't be stupid, Daniel!" he barked, his German accent thick. "Fetch your cloak — you'll freeze to death in minutes, unprotected."

Cursing, Dan went to snatch up his winter cloak from where he'd thrown it over one end of the workbench. He fumbled with the clasps and tugged the hood up over his bare head. There was no time to fool with his winter mask or gloves, and he prayed nothing was attacking Laurie, because he couldn't fight like this.

He made it outside just in time to see Adrian lose his footing in the snow off the heated path leading back to the main complex. Laurie was out there in the snowfield, a dozen yards away, her dark cloak barely visible in the swirl of snow reflecting the workshop's exterior lights. Her head was thrown back as she screamed up at the sky...

" _Jon!"_

Stunned — she'd barely even mentioned Jon's name in the last five years — Dan made it as far as Adrian and grabbed hold of his arm to help him to his feet. Adrian tried to pull free, but stopped his struggles as a brilliant blue glow filled the stormy air before them.

Jon Osterman had returned.

Dan could hear him as clearly as if he stood beside Dan and not fifteen feet away, separated by darkness and snow and screaming arctic wind.

"Laurie."

If she answered, he couldn't hear it. She threw herself against Jon's chest, and after a moment, he lifted his arms, circling her cloaked body. His hands glowed almost violently bright against the midnight black of her sable-lined coat. His head was tilted to one side, as though puzzled by her behavior, and it was almost ten seconds before his hands started to move — slowly, hesitantly, as though he had to remind himself of the motions to offer comfort to a loved one.

The cold found every opening and gap in Dan's cloak. Without the rest of his winter gear to protect his face and hands, he felt the wind and snow keenly. He tugged the hood low to his eyes and hunched his shoulders, trying to stay warm without having to put a hand out of his cloak, and he regretted the foolish stylistic decision that made him decide on a cloak and not a coat with sleeves.

He was ready to retreat back to the warmth of the workshop when Jon started walking toward him — at least,  _one_  Jon did. Another one, perhaps the original, was still standing in the storm, holding Laurie, only the snow had stopped falling in a ten foot radius around them.

The other Jon stopped a few feet away. "Dan. Adrian. I didn't expect to see you three together again."

Guilt choked Dan's voice, but he didn't have to speak. Adrian, the most socially comfortable of them all, answered smoothly, "I invited them here so I could attempt to begin repaying the debt I owe."

Jon's white, enigmatic gaze turned on Dan. "How?"

Dan swallowed, bare fingers twisting into the fur lining of his cloak for warmth. He was painfully conscious that his belt was back in the workshop on the floor, its absence obvious. "Life. Youth. A gene therapy."

"Genetic therapy to —"

"Actually, that isn't precisely the truth," Adrian said, and Dan's head snapped around as fear cut through him. "It's nanotechnology."

"Yes," Jon said, ignoring the way Dan stared at Adrian in shock. "I see them now, in both of you."

Adrian nodded, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. "In another month, he'll have the body of a twenty-five-year-old."

Dan found his voice, looking past the nearer copy of Jon to the one who still held Laurie. "How long have you been back?" he asked, suddenly wondering about Laurie's distance. She'd slept with Dan (or they'd tried, anyway)  _before_  telling Jon that their relationship was over. Had she gone back to Jon before all this?

"Three days. I was... surprised when Laurie called me."

"Called you? What, you... you got a phone?"

"She called his name," Adrian answered, and Jon turned to look at him instead of Dan. "You've been watching over her."

"Yes. I have," Jon told him.

Dan flinched, wondering what 'watching her' actually meant. Did he knew what had been going on between Laurie and Dan? Or... or what had just happened between Adrian and Dan?

Adrian had to be wondering the same thing, but he showed no sign of it in his voice. "Then perhaps you know that I offered the treatment to Laurie, though she has, to this point, been resistant."

"She wishes to come with me."

Dan had expected it, but it still was a blow. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, trying to hunch into his cloak even more, feeling a pit of empty loneliness yawning under his feet, just waiting for the last push to swallow him up.

"Do you still have the intrinsic field subtractor you used in your attempt to disassemble me?"

The calm question shocked Dan into looking at the other two men — the two who were, each in his own way, gods among men. He thought back five years, remembering how Jon had run after Adrian, only to reappear outside, looming above the glass pyramid before he shattered it with a single blow. He'd said something about reassembling himself being the first trick he'd learned...

"Yes. I've had to use it for testing, to improve efficiencies in the reactor technology we developed," Adrian said.

"Will you use it on Laurie?"

" _No!"_  Dan gasped, the pieces falling into place. "Just because — Just because that's how  _you_  managed — became — It's not right! You can't do that to her!" He threw a desperate look at Adrian, though he knew logically that Adrian wouldn't refuse. In retrospect, Dan was amazed Adrian hadn't used it on others, or even on  _himself,_  simply because of the potential benefit — the creation of another god like Dr. Manhattan.

"I won't," Adrian said, shocking Dan into silence. "I will not take her life, Jon. If you wish to use it yourself, you —"

He cut off, as Jon — as both of them — vanished, along with Laurie.

"They're really going to do it," Dan said softly, staring out at the snow that swirled in to fill the empty space where they'd been. "He's going to kill — She's going to  _let_  him..."

She wasn't even going to say goodbye.

Numb, he turned and started walking toward the lights, thinking of going back to the workshop. He'd take Archimedes and just leave. Go somewhere. Maybe go nowhere. Maybe he'd just tape down the flamethrower button and stand in front of it until everything stopped hurting.

* * *

Consciousness came to Dan slowly, creeping up on him in inches. He was surrounded by warmth, cradled by softness. A bed, but it felt different than the one where he'd been sleeping for the past few weeks.

He opened his eyes to almost complete darkness. High overhead, higher than the ceiling should have been, light glittered over traces of gold.  _Adrian,_  he thought, his fingers running over thick, soft sheets that he guessed were silk.

He sat up and twisted to try and reach the light he assumed would be on a nightstand. It was farther than he expected — the bed was immense. Fumbling, he finally found a switch and triggered it.

Light pooled beside the bed, glowing on dark purple sheets draped over white pillows. Overhead, gilded bas relief sculptures lined the walls and the tops of the columns. Movement drew his eye up, to an immense window looking out into darkness.

Adrian took a step away from the window. He wore part of his costume as Ozymandias without his mask, cape, or gloves. "How are you feeling?" he asked quietly.

Good question. "Headache," he said, his voice rough, throat burning. His lips were chapped. He rubbed a hand over his jaw; it felt like he had a terrible sunburn on his face and his hands. "What happened?"

"Exposure. I had to carry you back inside."

Exposure. Outside. He remembered — "Laurie?"

Slowly, Adrian walked to the edge of the bed. "She stepped into the intrinsic field subtractor over an hour ago."

He closed his eyes against tears and tried to find his voice, but even if he succeeded, he had no idea what he'd say.

A hand, warm and strong, closed over his shoulder. Softly, Adrian said, "Jon went with her. If anyone can help her, he can."

"God," Dan whispered, turning to sit on the edge of the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his head sink into his hands, feeling the ache of loss. He'd tried to do his best to make her happy — to be good for her — but he'd failed...

Or... had he tried his best? What did he know about relationships? It was incredibly irresponsible of him to have gotten involved with her at all. She should have had a normal life, instead of hiding with him as Sam and Sandra Hollis. She'd been young; she could've gone to school, gotten a job, found a normal boyfriend —

"Daniel." Adrian sat beside him, his hand tightening on his shoulder. "She's not alone. Jon is with her. He's the one best equipped to help her."

"How?" he asked, looking at Adrian's blurry face. "How did it all come to this?"

Instead of answering immediately, Adrian sighed and looked distantly toward the wall. "I knew he would come back. For all of Dr. Manhattan's inhumanity, at the core, he remains Dr. Jon Osterman."

"You knew? Was this — Did you  _plan_  this?"

Adrian didn't answer, which was somehow worse than saying yes. "To have a creature like Dr. Manhattan loose in the universe without moral safeguard presented a terrible danger — far worse than the threat of nuclear war. He needed Laurie. Only Laurie can control him."

With those last words, Dan began to see the shape of the puzzle, or so he thought. "That's... That's why you offered to restore her youth. Jon left his first girlfriend because she got old."

Adrian's hand slipped off Dan's shoulder. He folded his hands in his lap and said, "I wish it hadn't come to this, Dan. I hate that this hurt you."

"She just left —" he started to say, and then stopped himself, realizing it wasn't true. She didn't just leave. He'd... God, he'd  _driven_  her away. He hadn't just let their relationship fall apart. He... he and Adrian...

Guilt flooded him and he raked his hands through his hair, the thick strands catching on his fingers. He pulled his hands down and looked at them, feeling the ache from exposure to the cold. His skin was reddened and chapped...

But... tight.  _Young._

"The treatment," he said softly, lifting a hand to his face, touching the corners of his mouth, tracing under his eye. "It's working."

Adrian turned, looking at him, and smiled very faintly. "It's progressing acceptably. It's not complete. You shouldn't leave until it's finished, though. I'm sorry."

"Nanotechnology," Dan said, remembering. "It's not gene therapy. Why —"

With an uncharacteristically guilty flinch, Adrian looked away. "Nanotechnology is a favored villain of science fiction writers, Daniel. I... was concerned that if you knew the truth, you wouldn't accept the treatment. And I knew that if you didn't accept it, Laurie wouldn't."

The betrayal didn't hurt quite as much as it might have. It was logical. That's how it always was, with Adrian. Logic ruled emotion.

Dan shook his head, trying to push it aside, and said, "But she didn't. She didn't take the treatment."

Adrian took a deep breath and nodded slowly, looking up one of the columns toward the gold detailing. "By passing into the intrinsic field subtractor, she no longer needs to worry about age, just as Jon does not."

"So... this was all just another plan. It was never about the morality of youth —"

"Daniel."

"It was never about... about helping —"

"Daniel."

"We're not even  _real to you!"_

" _I did it for_  you," Adrian snapped, turning, grabbing hold of Dan's shoulder. As soon as their eyes met, Adrian went on, "I knew Jon would return to Earth, and I knew he'd be even more detached from humanity than before. The  _only_  hope was for someone to reach him. Laurie."

"I know," Dan said, surprised at how bitter he sounded. He wrenched free and got up, only then realizing he wasn't wearing a damned thing. Flushed with sudden warmth, he looked around for pants, a robe, anything.

Adrian shook his head, also rising. He reached out but Dan twisted and paced away, turning his back.

"Daniel... If Jon decided he wanted Laurie back, you would be nothing more than an obstacle."

Just the thought of that made Dan shiver; the power Jon Osterman wielded was terrifying. "But she was..." He trailed off, because he honestly couldn't say she'd been happy with him. Their life had been good at first, but then it had become... bland. The best he could say is that she hadn't been miserable.

He rubbed at his forehead and turned enough to look back at the nightstand, hoping to find his glasses. "God. What a damned mess," he whispered.

He heard Adrian move. "Here," he said, draping soft, heavy silk over Dan's shoulders. Dan tugged it into place and got his arms into the sleeves. Adrian turned him, his hands on Dan's waist. He drew two ends of a belt forward and tied them in place.

Up close, Dan could see the dark purple bruise under Adrian's left eye, the swelling of his scabbed lower lip. Another spasm of guilt swept through him. "Adrian," he said, his voice breaking as he remembered what he'd done after inflicting those wounds. He stepped back, wishing the wounds could actually disappear as quickly as they faded out from his vision.

After a moment, Adrian said, "Daniel, I truly am sorry. I... I know you loved her, but... she doesn't deserve you."

Startled, Dan stopped looking for his glasses and turned back to Adrian's blurry form. "What?"

Adrian moved close again, lifting one hand to rest it gently on Dan's chest, touching skin at the edge of the neckline of the silk robe. "She doesn't deserve you," he repeated, pressing his fingers against Dan's collarbone. "You're worth so much more, Daniel..."

Dan's breath caught as the touch burned through his skin. "Adrian —"

The other man jerked back as though stung, turning in a blur of blond hair and dark neoprene. "I'm sorry," he said, turning away again. He gestured off to the side, a blur of motion, and said, "Your suit is there, on the dresser. Once you finish your treatment, you'll never have to see me again."

He was a half dozen steps away before Dan broke from his startled freeze. He caught hold of Adrian's shoulder, feeling the ridges of the sculpted mantle under his fingertips. "Adrian.  _I'm_  the one who's sorry. I... God, what I did —"

Adrian turned, shaking his head, lifting his hand to touch Dan's face. "No, Daniel," he said, a pleading note in his voice. "You were distraught over what was happening with Laurie. And I... I'm so sorry. I tried to stay away, but... there's always been something about you," he said, his voice falling into a whisper as his fingertips traced over Dan's cheek.

" _You_  tried to stay away? From... from me?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Oh, Daniel... You still have trouble believing," Adrian said softly, running his thumb along Dan's lower lip.

"Believing —"

Adrian silenced him with another swipe of his thumb, followed by his lips, the touch both soft and searing. Dan gasped in disbelief, and Adrian licked into his mouth, hands sliding over the silk robe, sending shivers through Dan's body. All the fear and stress and guilt seemed to melt away under that touch. The  _need_  that had tormented him returned in full. He locked an arm around Adrian's body, burying his other hand in his soft blond hair. Adrian's armor was hard and cold against Dan's body, even through the thick silk robe.

When Adrian's lips moved to press a line of hot kisses and sharp bites to his jaw, he whispered, "Adrian. No. What I did to you —"

"Daniel," he laughed, tongue working at the pulse point below his ear, scrambling Dan's thoughts under sparking waves of pleasure. "Do you think you could do to me anything I didn't want you to do?"

Dan's hands froze. The breath caught in his throat. He pulled back, looking into Adrian's blue eyes, close enough that his focus was nearly perfect. "You... you  _wanted_..."

Adrian captured his words with another kiss, his body pressed desperately against Dan's, whispering between kisses, "Yes. Daniel, yes.  _Please._ "

Whatever hesitation Dan might have felt melted away under that plea, so uncharacteristic, so impossible to imagine, coming from Adrian Veidt. Ozymandias. Who wanted  _him_.

"Please, Daniel. Even... even just this once," Adrian pleaded, sliding his hands into Dan's robe. "I know I don't deserve this but —"

"Adrian," Dan interrupted, catching his wrists, feeling the ridges of his gilded bracers hard beneath his skin. Adrian drew back and their eyes met again, the naked  _want_  in Adrian's blue eyes stealing Dan's breath away. He licked his lips, tasting Adrian's kiss, and said, his voice rough, "Yes. God, Adrian, yes."


	10. Checkmate

**Part 10: Checkmate**

_Karnak is situated on a stable cliff on the Antarctic continent. In winter, the ice shelf triples Antarctica's size. Darkness reigns, ever-increasing. As midwinter approaches — midsummer in northern climates — the sun is visible for less than an hour._

_Now, the sun rises low over the night-dark sea. Behind me, Daniel breathes, sleeping deeply. I can still feel the bruises left by his hands and teeth, a cryptic pattern engraved into my body, one I've never even seen, much less attempted to decipher._

_Why did I allow it?_

_No. Not allow. Why did I encourage it?_

_Daniel is no longer necessary for my plans. He was never necessary. He was, in fact, an obstacle to be removed, returning Laurie to play. Jon's human soul, in the form of Laurie, has been restored. Dr. Manhattan no longer presents a danger to earth._

_Behind me, in my bed, Daniel Drieberg sleeps. In an hour at most, hunger will wake him. Already, a part of me is considering what meal he might enjoy._

_It defies logic, my inability to kill him. He knows the truth of what happened five years ago. He carries the evidence of my research — my bio-mechanical cell-repairing nano-scale robots — in his blood. He is, in fact, aware of the extent of my planning._

_I have analyzed him, in depth. I can predict his reactions, his motives, even his thoughts. And while I could control his white-knight tendencies, there is no reason for me to exert myself in that way. There is no benefit._

_I should kill him._

_But I can't._

_I won't._


End file.
